Email Settings

WooCommerce has a variety of built-in emails to help communicate your store’s operations. This guide provides a detailed overview of the email settings in WooCommerce, including:

• The email notifications built into the WooCommerce plugin.
• Settings to set the sender information for your shop’s emails.
• Email Template settings to customize the look of your shop’s emails.
• Settings available to customize or disable individual emails
• Custom Email Templates (Developers)

Find these settings on your site at: WooCommerce > Settings > Emails.

The video below provides a brief overview of the settings available.

Email notifications

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For each WooCommerce email listed, it’s possible to configure your settings (optional). More detailed instructions below in: Editing Individual Emails.

• New order – The system sends new order emails to your chosen recipient(s) upon receiving a new order.
• Cancelled order – The system sends cancelled order emails to your chosen recipient(s) when orders are marked cancelled (if they were previously processing or on-hold).
• Failed order – The system sends failed order emails to your chosen recipient(s) when orders are marked failed (if they were previously pending or on-hold).
• Order on-hold – The system sends this order notification to customers with their order details when an order is placed on-hold from the Pending, Cancelled or Failed order status.
• Processing order – The system sends this order notification to customers containing order details after payment.
• Completed order – The system sends order complete emails to customers when their orders are marked completed, this usually indicates that their orders are shipped.
• Refunded order – The system sends order refunded emails to customers when their orders are refunded. This email has settings for both partial and full refunds.
• Order Details – You send this email manually from the “Edit Order” screen to share invoice details and a payment link with customers. This email has setting for paid and unpaid orders
• Customer note – The system sends customer note emails when you add a note marked “Note to Customer” to an order. Learn more about: Order Notes
• Reset password – The system sends customer “reset password” emails when customers reset their passwords.
• New account – The system sends customer “new account” emails when a customer signs up via checkout or account pages.

Email Sender Options

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At WooCommerce > Settings >Emails, beneath the table of email notifications, there are options you can use to set the “From” name and “From” address used for emails sent by WooCommerce. We recommend using an email address with a domain that matches your site’s domain to help ensure your emails are delivered. See more in our email authentication documentation.

Email Template

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The “Email Template” settings let you customize the following aspects of WooCommerce emails:

• Header Image – Enter the URL of an image you want to show in the email header. You can upload an image via the Media > Add New Media File menu option.
• Footer Text – Enter text to include beneath the main body of your emails. Available Placeholders are:
  • {site_url} – The web address to your site as set in Settings > General > Site Address (URL)
  • {site_title} – The title of your site as set in Settings > General > Site Title
• Base Color – Color for WooCommerce email templates.
• Background Color – Background color for WooCommerce email templates.
• Email Body Background Color – Main body background color.
• Email Body Text Color – Main body text color.

After you’ve made and saved any changes, you can click the link at the top of the section to preview your email template.

Editing Individual Emails

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From the Email Notifications list above, select Manage on the right side of the email you’d like to edit.

On this screen, you can edit the following settings. Some emails have slightly different options.

• Enable/Disable – Enable this email notification. (The Order Details email is sent manually and so can’t be disabled)
• Recipient(s) – Enter recipients (comma separated) for this email. Defaults to the site administrator email set in Settings > General. Only emails meant for shop managers and admins have this setting. (i.e. the New order, Cancelled order, and Failed order emails.)
• Subject – This controls the email subject line. Leave blank to use the default subject. Accepts placeholders
• Email heading – This controls the main heading contained within the email notification. Leave blank to use the default heading. Accepts placeholders.
  • The Refunded Order and Order details emails have additional subject and email heading fields to accommodate different possible payment or refund statuses on orders.
• Additional content – Add text to appear below the main email content. Accepts Placeholders.
• Available placeholders are:
  • {site_title} – The title of your site as set in Settings > General > Site Title
  • {site_address}, {site_url} – The web address to your site as set in Settings > General > Site Address (URL)
  • {order_date} – The date the order was placed
  • {order_number} – The order number for the relevant order.
• Email type – Choose which format of email to send. Options include:
  • Plain Text – A stripped-down version of the email without any HTML formatting.
  • HTML – A version with rich formatting for images, different fonts, and layouts.
  • Multipart – Sends both HTML and plain text versions of the content. The recipient’s email client will choose which version to display based on its capabilities and settings.

If using Plain Text emails, keep in mind that text fields are limited to 155 characters. If your products have long names and/or numerous variations/add-ons, the field may be truncated.

Custom Email Templates (Developers)

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If you’re a developer or are comfortable editing PHP files, WooCommerce provides everything you need to make changes to email templates. At the bottom of the settings page for each email, there’s a note that tells you which PHP template is associated with that email. There’s also a button you can use to quickly copy the template file to your theme

Every WooCommerce email is built from of a combination of templates. This allows you more control over customization. To find out more information on the template structure for WooCommerce emails, see our template structure documentation.

We recommend keeping template customizations in a child theme, so changes don’t get overwritten when performing updates. More at: How to set up and use a child theme.

For some more tips on editing customizing WooCommerce emails, see this post on the WooCommerce blog.

Questions and Support

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Do you still have questions and need assistance? 

• If you’re looking to extend the core functionality shown here, we recommend reviewing available extensions in the Woo Marketplace.
• Need ongoing advanced support, or a customization built for WooCommerce? Hire a WooExpert agency.
• Are you a developer building your own WooCommerce integration or extension? Check our Developer Resources.

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