10. Emails

The email options described above are available to all members at no additional cost, because we recognize that email is fundamental to growing a site. Yet, we still need to manage the resources this service consumes, so some limitations are appropriate.

Transactional Email Policies

These are emails WordPress sends regarding the administration and maintenance of your WordPress site. Examples include WordPress updates, new user registrations and user comments.

In order to protect our members’ domain reputations and to keep their emails from winding up in spam inboxes, the From address on these transactional emails is [email protected]. All WPMU DEV sites are preconfigured to handle transactional emails in this way, and no configuration is required.

We do not allow sending non-transactional emails from [email protected]. This restriction applies to email subscriptions, newsletters, marketing, or mass email. These types of emails should be sent from an email address you own.

If you wish to change the From address on noreply emails to an address you own, see the Using SMTP To Send Emails chapter below.

Transactional Email Limits

The number of transactional emails sent per day and month for each site is also limited, as shown below. These limits only apply if you are using our default [email protected] address. They do not apply if you’re using an email address you own through a third-party mail service.

If your site exceeds these limits, we will temporarily block email sending and notify you if you exceed your monthly quota. If your site needs to regularly send more emails than our quota allows, please upgrade your plan or configure WordPress to use SMTP or another transactional email service like Mailgun.

Email Site Stats

You can view the number of emails your site has sent during the past 30 days in the Site Email Stats area of the Email Dashboard.

Email Account Limitations

Members whose sites we host can create up to 10 email accounts for each site to send and receive domain emails using any email client or cloud-base email service.

There is no additional charge for these email accounts, and the only limitations are:

• Email accounts are available only for sites we host.
• Email addresses can only be created for primary domains (not subdomains).
• Each hosted site can create ten domain email addresses. If more addresses are needed, we recommend using a dedicated email service, such as G Suite or Zoho.
• Members cannot create domain email addresses and email forwarding addresses using our forwarding tool for the same site.
• Storage

  Each inbox is limited to 100MB of total storage with file attachments limited to 15MB. Additional storage cannot be purchased. Members can avoid excessive storage use by configuring their email clients to delete emails from the server as soon as possible after they are pulled into the client.

Email Forwarding Limitations

WPMU DEV members can create as many forwarding addresses as they wish, but email forwarding does have its limitations:

• WPMU DEV can only forward emails for domains we host.
• Email forwarding only allows you to receive emails sent to an address you create. In order to send emails with your domain in the address, use the Email Account SMTP options discussed in this guide.
• Email forwarding and domain email cannot be employed at the same time for a single domain. Email can only be sent from one location, as determined by the domain’s MX records. Email forwarding requires different MX records than standard email, so the two cannot co-exist on a single site.

Click the Emails tab, then click the Email Accounts option to open the Email Account creation and management tool.

If you have not created an email address click the Add email account button to get started.

This will open the Add email account module. Input the address you would like to create. This should be something like [email protected].

Copy the strong password provided or create your own password, and click the Add button to create your new email address.

This will generate your account and add all the information you need to connect to your email application.

In order to send and receive emails from your new email address, you will need to add the MX info to your DNS record. For information on adding and managing your DNS records in Hub 2.0 visit the DNS records manager documentation.

MX Records are Mail Exchange Record use specify the mail server responsible for accepting email messages on behalf of a domain name.

When adding the MX record to your DNS records:

• Set the Type to MX
• Set Hostname to @ – this points the record to the root name
  If your DNS manager does not accept @ in the Hostname field and requires the domain name, be sure to include the period at the end of the name; without it, email will not work.
• Value for MX records managed by WPMU DEV is mailu.wpmudev.host.
  Here, the period at the end is optional; mail will work whether you include it or not.
• For DNS records on WPMU DEV the Priority should be set to 1
• TTL (Time to Live) defaults to 14400 seconds

G-Suite & Google Domains

If you are a G-Suite user and/or are setting up MX records for a domain hosted by Google Domains, you’ll want to configure DKIM and SPF records before configuring DMARC. According to Google, DKIM and SPF should be authenticating messages for at least 48 hours before turning on DMARC.

If you are having trouble with the DKIM and/or DMARC entries after 48 hours, you can try editing those 2 entries so they do not include the domain name in them as provided in your Hub. Edit them so they look like the below example:

If you get an error in your Hub saying that the SPF record is missing, you can try deleting that record and re-adding it as a TXT record instead.

Email aliases are a simple way to receive email sent from multiple addresses at the same email account. You need to have already set up at least one email account in your Hub before you can create aliases.

For example, if you have already set up an email account for [email protected], you could create various aliases to use like [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], etc, and receive mail from all of those at [email protected]site.tld

To get started, click the Add Alias button in the Active Email Aliases section just under Active Email Accounts.

In the modal window that pops open, enter the alias name you wish to use in the Alias field. Then select the actual email account this alias should send to in the Email dropdown, and click Add.

Check the Catch All ? checkbox if you want this new alias address to catch all emails sent to any address at your domain that does yet exist.

In other words, if you have an email account set up for [email protected], any email sent to that address will arrive in that account’s inbox. But if someone sends an email to [email protected], and there is no account set up for that address, it would arrive in that same inbox as well if it set as a catchall address.

You’ll then see your new alias appear in the Active Email Aliases section, and can now use that alias anywhere you like. Any email sent to that address will be received at the actual email account associated with it.

To delete an existing alias, click the Delete button in the alias row, then click the Delete button in the confirmation modal that pops open.

Follow these instructions to connect your email account to the Mail application included with your Mac computer or Apple iOS devices.

Choose the Add an account option or (+) icon in the Mail application preferences for a laptop or desktop computer, or from the preferences in your iOS device select, Add Account.

Choose the Other option in the list of clients.

Enter:

• Your name
• Email address associated to your WPMU DEV email account
• The password you created or the strong password generated by when the email account was created

And click the Sign-in button. This will display the message, Unable to verify the account name or password, message.

Be sure to switch account type to POP and for the incoming and outgoing mail servers input mailu.wpmudev.host.

Select the Apps you want to use with the account and click done.

You should now be able to send and receive emails from your Apple devices using the Mail application.

You can access additional configuration options for your POP account in the mail configurations options.

Note that if you’re setting this up on an iPhone, you may need to double-check that SMTP is enabled for this account (with correct username & password), and SSL is set to port 587.

To send and receive emails from your WPMU DEV Email Account in Gmail, open Gmail in your browser and click the settings (gear) icon in the top right of the screen.

Click the Accounts and Imports tab and under the Check mail from other accounts option, click the Add a mail account link.

In the “Add a mail account” module, enter the email address from your WPMU DEV hosting account and click next.

If you see the following step, choose the Import emails from my other account (POP3) and click next.

Then enter your WPMU DEV email account credentials and server information:

• Username – Default is your email address
• Password – The password you created or the strong password generated when creating the Email Account
• Pop Server – mailu.wpmudev.host
• Port – 995
• And check the box always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail.
• Click add account

If you would like to also be able to send emails from your Gmail account, choose the Yes, I want to be able to send mail as option.

You will then be asked to enter information about your other email address. Make sure to check the Treat as an alias box so that messages received from your WPMU DEV email account will appear in your Gmail inbox. Click Next Step when this is done.

Configure the send options:

• SMTP Server – This is mailu.wpmudev.host
• Port – 587
• Username – Default is your email address
• Password – The password you created or the strong password generated when creating the Email Account

Click the Add account button and verify your account, either by clicking on the verification link or by inputting the confirmation code sent to your email.

You should now be able to send and receive emails from the Gmail client.

If you encounter an issue connect to Gmail, contact WPMU DEV live chat support 24/7.

The Outlook client is the Microsoft Outlook desktop application, which is different than the cloud-based email service Outlook.com.

Instructions for connecting an Outlook.com account are located below.

Begin by opening the Outlook desktop application and clicking File in the menu ribbon. Next, click the Add Account button.

Enter the WPMU DEV hosting email address you wish to connect, and click the checkbox for the Let me set up my account manually option. Then, click Connect.

Select POP as the type of email account you are connecting.

The information required to complete the POP email setup is located on the Email Accounts screen for the site associated with that address.

Go to the Active Email Accounts section and click the information button.

Copy the connection information into the appropriate fields in Outlook’s POP setup screen.

Enter the following information into the indicated fields:

• Servers – The same server, or host, is used for both incoming and outgoing email, so enter mailu.wpmudev.host into both server fields.
• Incoming port – The incoming port for all WPMU DEV email accounts is 995. So, enter that number into the incoming mail port field.
• Outgoing port – The outgoing port for all WPMU DEV email accounts is 587. So, enter that number into the outgoing mail port field.
• Encryption method – TLS is enabled for all WPMU DEV hosted email accounts, but there are two TLS options available in Outlook. It is important to select the STARTTLS option.

When ready, click the Next button. On the next screen, Outlook will request the email account password. This is the password you chose or the strong password we provided when the email address was created. If you forgot that password, you will need to create a new one using the guidance in the Updating the password section below.When ready, enter the email address password into the field provided by Outlook and click Connect.

Updating the password

If you forgot the email address password, you will need to create a new one. Go to the Active Email Accounts area of the site’s Hosting manager and click the three dots next to the active email address being added to reveal the drop-down menu.

A new strong password is automatically created for you, or you can enter a custom password into the field provided. When ready, click Update.

You can now begin sending and receiving emails from the Outlook client using the connected WPMU DEV hosted email address.

To connect a WPMU DEV email account to Outlook.com you will need an Outlook.com account and the password you chose when you created the WPMU DEV email account.

Log in to your Outlook.com account. Click the Settings icon (gear) in the top right corner but on the left of your user icon.

Locate the View all Outlook settings link and click it.

Locate and click Sync email to open the Connected accounts feature.

Click Other email accounts. Enter your account credentials in the fields provided and click Ok.

Outlook will connect with your WPMU DEV account and you will see the required configuration options– server port, authentication and encryption– populate, automatically.

Click Ok to complete the connection. Any existing emails from your WPMU DEV account will be imported into your Outlook.com mailbox, and future emails will arrive there as well.

Yahoo is undergoing a redesign and is not supporting 3rd-party POP accounts. Visit Yahoo! Mail for more information and updates.

To send and receive emails from your WPMU DEV Email Account in Thunderbird, open the Thunderbird application on your desktop and go to File > New > Existing mail account.

In the Set Up an Existing Email Account module add your Email credentials:

• Name – the name you would like shown to others
• Email Address – The email address you are hosting with WPMU DEV
• Password – The password you created or the strong password generated when creating the Email Account

Then click the Manual config button to set up the incoming and outgoing email options.

Incoming configuration:

• Incoming – POP3
• Server hostname – mailu.wpmudev.host
• Port – 995
• SSL – SSL/TLS
• Authentication – Normal password

Outgoing configuration:

• Incoming – SMTP
• Server hostname – mailu.wpmudev.host
• Port – 587
• SSL – STARTTLS
• Authentication – Normal password

Use the Re-test button to verify your settings and click done to complete the setup.

Use the Thunderbird documentation for information about managing emails in Thunderbird. For help configuring your WPMU DEV email account visit our 24/7 live support team.