DadsFam SMTP

WordPress sends email with PHP’s mail() function, which most hosts either block or deliver straight to spam. DadsFam SMTP replaces it with a real authenticated SMTP connection, so your password resets, contact forms and WooCommerce order emails actually arrive.

Everything described below works on every site. Nothing is disabled, blurred out, time-limited or reduced.

Set up in about two minutes

Pick your provider from the list and the host, port and encryption fill themselves in. Enter your username and password, save, then send a test email. The test shows you the full SMTP conversation, so if something is wrong you can see exactly which step failed.

Supported providers

Gmail, Outlook and Office 365, SendGrid, Mailgun, Amazon SES, Brevo, Postmark, SparkPost, Zoho Mail, Yahoo Mail, Hostinger, cPanel, and any custom SMTP server.

Features

• 13 pre-configured providers with automatic host, port and encryption defaults
• Per-provider setup notes built into the interface, including the common gotchas
• AES-256-CBC encrypted credentials — passwords are never stored as plain text
• Full sender control — From Name, From Email, Reply-To and Return-Path
• Unlimited email logging with status, subject, recipient, connection and timestamp
• Retention control — keep logs for as many days as you choose, or forever
• One-click resend of any logged email
• Full email body viewer in a sandboxed preview frame
• CSV export of your entire delivery history
• Send test email with live SMTP diagnostic output
• Connection test that opens a real socket and speaks SMTP, without sending anything
• Deliverability checker for SPF, DKIM, DMARC and MX records
• Email health score combining DNS authentication, configuration and real send history
• Delivery failure alerts by email
• Blocking mode stops all outgoing mail on staging sites while still logging attempts
• Suppression list for addresses and domains that must never be contacted
• Analytics with a seven-day delivery chart and per-connection success rates
• WooCommerce diagnostics — confirm store emails route correctly and test each type
• Dashboard widget with sent, failed and success rate at a glance
• Backup and migrate your configuration as JSON
• Documented hook API for developers

WooCommerce

DadsFam SMTP hooks in at a late priority, so it wins over WooCommerce’s own From address settings and your store emails always send from the address you configured. The diagnostics screen flags any mismatch between the two and lets you test-send each WooCommerce email type.

Declared compatible with High-Performance Order Storage and Cart & Checkout Blocks.

Extending the plugin

The plugin exposes documented actions and filters — dfsmtp_configure_mailer, dfsmtp_after_configure_mailer, dfsmtp_mail_failed, dfsmtp_mail_logged, dfsmtp_save_settings, dfsmtp_settings_page_end, dfsmtp_nav_pages and others — so you can layer your own behaviour onto the send pipeline. The full list is documented in the header of dadsfam-email-smtp.php.

An optional commercial add-on, DadsFam SMTP PRO, is built on this same hook API for stores and agencies sending at higher volume. It is a separate plugin and is not required — this plugin is complete on its own.

A word about PRO

Right, let me be straight with you, because I hate being sold to as much as you do.

Everything above is free and it stays free. Sending your mail through a proper SMTP server is not a premium feature. Saving your provider details, encrypting your password, logging what went out and resending one that failed are not premium features. Those are things a plugin like this should just do, and if I put them behind a paywall I would be taking the mickey.

There is a PRO add-on. It exists because I am a dad in Cape Town, and this is one of the things that puts food on the table at my house. That is the honest reason. Not «unlock your potential», not «supercharge your workflow». Just: if this plugin got your email sending again and you can spare it, PRO helps me keep building.

What PRO adds is the stuff you only want once you are sending real volume — sending from more than one mailbox and routing each message to the right one, failing over to a backup server when your main one has a bad day, retrying failed sends on their own, open and click tracking, failure alerts into Slack or Discord, and a weekly delivery digest. That is convenience and automation. It is not the plugin working properly, because the plugin already works properly.

So if the free one does everything you need, brilliant. Genuinely. Use it, and I hope it saves you a frustrating afternoon chasing email that will not send. If you get to the point where the automation would save you real time, PRO is at plugins.dadsfam.co.za.

Either way, thanks for using something I built. — Zak, DadsFam

PRO adds:

• Multiple saved SMTP connections
• Smart routing by subject, sender or recipient domain
• Automatic failover to a backup server
• Auto-retry of failed emails
• Open and click tracking
• Slack, Discord and webhook failure alerts
• Weekly delivery digest and hourly send limits

External services

This plugin does not connect to any service of its own. It has no home-phoning, no analytics and no licence checks.

It does, however, exist to hand your website’s email to an SMTP server that you choose and configure. That server is a third party service, and what it receives is entirely determined by your own settings.

What is sent: the emails your WordPress site produces — sender, recipients, subject, message body and any attachments — together with the username and password you entered, so the server will accept them.

When it is sent: only when WordPress sends an email, and only once you have entered SMTP details and saved them. With no details entered, the plugin sends nothing anywhere.

Where it is sent: to the host you type into the settings, and nowhere else. The plugin includes ready-made host and port presets for a number of well-known providers purely so you do not have to look them up. A preset is only a shortcut for filling in the form; selecting one does not contact anybody, and no provider is contacted unless you have entered credentials for it and WordPress sends an email.

Because you choose the provider, you are agreeing to that provider’s terms. The presets included cover, among others:

• Google Gmail / Workspace — terms, privacy
• Microsoft Outlook / Microsoft 365 — terms, privacy
• Amazon SES — terms, privacy
• SendGrid (Twilio) — terms, privacy
• Mailgun — terms, privacy
• Postmark — terms, privacy
• Brevo — terms, privacy
• Zoho Mail — terms, privacy

If you use your own mail server, or a provider not listed above, then that server is the only third party involved and its own terms apply.

Support

Email: support@dadsfam.co.za Website: https://www.dadsfam.co.za