The Contact Form 7 (CF7) plugin successfully sends millions of emails every day. But, there are a wide variety of issues that can delay or stop your Contact Form 7 emails.
Follow along and learn how to prevent your Contact Form 7 emails getting rejected as spam.
There are a few simple checks you can do right now to prevent your emails going to spam.
Contact Form 7 email going into spam
What happens to some CF7 emails
During the email sending and receiving process, your email message can be:
- Rejected as spam by the sending or receiving mail server.
- Routed to a spam folder on your local computer or business network.
- Discarded as malicious content by mail servers all around the world.
…and this often happens without any notification.
Why your email may be treated as spam
Emails sent from Contact Form 7 can be considered spam for a number of reasons, and get rejected at many points during the email sending and receiving process, in addition to your spam folder.
This is usually due to the From: email address used or email content.
For example if your website is at mysite.com, then you should use an email address like me@mysite.com in the From: field in the Mail tab.
If you’re using a different domain in your From: email address, it is possible that the email will:
- Not send on some hosting systems, or
- Be rejected as spam by many mail receiving systems.
Increasingly, emails that are seen to come from a different domain are rejected as spam by many mail receiving systems.
Avoid using From: [your-name] <[your-email]>
Contact Form 7 uses the info in the Mail tab to send an email – just like a regular email you send from your computer. To do that it needs a From: email address.
If you use the user’s email address in the From: field, you are actually trying to send an email from their address – e.g formuser@customer.com.
From: [your-name] <[your-email]> is now increasingly risky.
It may not seem like that to you … you’re just filling in a CF7 option, but CF7 is going to attempt to send an email from that email address.
Also your form is hosted at yourdomain.com.
What your host and other email hosts see is an email from formuser@customer.com sent by yourdomain.com.
… and this mismatch in domain names looks like spam.
But, if you use something like noreply@yourdomain.com in the From: field, then you don’t look like a spammer and all is good in the world again.
It is now highly likely that emails sent from CF7 using the form users email address will be rejected as spam by mail servers all around the world – without any warning they were rejected.
Go to Using ‘From: [your-name] <[your-email]>‘ is risky for information and steps on what to use instead.
Use a suitable From: address
The From: address used in the Mail section of CF7 is very important in determining whether an email is able to be sent and received.
A simple and effective way to avoid most problems is to always use an email address that belongs to the same domain as your WordPress site in the From field in the Mail & Mail(2) sections.
Go to Use a suitable From: address for step-by-step instructions on using a suitable From: address.
Examples of good & bad email addresses
Below are some example email addresses, whether they could be seen as spam or not, and why:
- cf7pro@gmail.com
- Spam
- Why? Gmail.com is not a domain handled by your mail server.
- contact@cf7pro.com
- Not spam
- Why? cf7pro.com is your domain.
- cf7pro@outlook.com
- Spam
- Why? outlook.com is not a domain handled by your mail server.
- noreply@cf7pro.com
- Not spam
- Why? cf7pro.com is your domain.
You can safely use [your name] <noreply@yourdomain.com> if you want to be able to sort by the name of the sender or apply filters in your email application.
For a more in-depth explanation and even more examples, refer to Some From email addresses to NOT use.
Extra steps to prevent your form emails being seen as spam
There are a few other measures you can take to ensure delivery of your Contact Form 7 emails.
These measures will help convince a recipient’s mail servers that your message is legitimate and should be delivered.
- Best Practice to Set Up Mail in the CF7 documentation has detailed information.
- Adding Additional headers can help you appear legitimate.
- Setting up an SPF Record can help ensure that an email from CF7 isn’t seen as forged.
Follow our Extra steps to prevent your form email being seen as SPAM and increase the chances of your email being sent.
A good rule of thumb is to use an email address that belongs to the same domain as your WordPress site in the From field in the Mail and Mail(2) sections of CF7.
Further reading
- What to put in the From address field in Contact Form 7
- Use Reply-to: to be able to reply back to submitted forms
- Store your form submissions with a Contact Form 7 Submission Storage plugin
Contact Form 7 Troubleshooter
If you would like some help from our support staff & are willing to help us by providing information on your use of Contact Form 7 & CF7 Skins, you should complete the following form:
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