You open Flamingo, CFDB7 or your form plugin’s entries and the submissions are all there, but nobody received an email for them. That is actually useful information: the form is working perfectly. Only the email step is broken, which rules out half the possible causes straight away.
For the complete troubleshooting path, see Contact form not sending email? Why it happens and how to fix it.
Where each plugin saves entries
| Form plugin | Where saved entries are |
|---|---|
| Contact Form 7 | Flamingo (Flamingo → Inbound Messages) or CFDB7 (Contact Forms menu) |
| WPForms | WPForms → Entries (paid versions) |
| Gravity Forms | Forms → Entries |
| Fluent Forms | Fluent Forms → Entries |
| Elementor Pro | Elementor → Submissions |
| Jetpack | Jetpack → Forms (Feedback in older versions) |
1. Check the notification for this form
Entries are saved whether or not an email is sent, so first confirm the form is meant to send one:
- The notification or mail action is switched on for this form.
- The recipient address is correct and still exists.
- No conditional logic skips the notification for these entries.
2. Test WordPress email on its own
Request a password reset for a test user. If that email does not arrive either, WordPress cannot send email at all, and every form on the site is affected. The cause is almost always the server’s PHP mail function: disabled, rate-limited, blocked, or sending unauthenticated mail that gets rejected.
3. Get the actual error
Guessing is slow. An SMTP plugin with an email log, or your host’s mail log, shows the reason each email failed: a refused connection, a rejected login, or a bounce code from the receiving server. Our guide to bounce codes explains the common ones.
4. Fix the sending
Send through an authenticated mail service, from an address on your own domain, with the visitor in Reply-To. See how to fix WordPress not sending email and why the From address matters.
After fixing it, go back through the saved entries from the broken period and reply to anyone you missed. Those are real enquiries that were never answered.
With SecureSMTP, every form notification appears in your delivery log as delivered or bounced, and you are emailed if a notification address does not exist, so a broken notification cannot go unnoticed for weeks.
Frequently asked questions
Should I keep saving form entries once email works?
Yes. Stored entries are your backup if an email is ever lost again, and they let you see which submissions you might have missed while email was broken.
Can I resend the notification for a saved entry?
Some plugins can, for example Gravity Forms can resend notifications from an entry, and WPForms has a resend option for entries. Otherwise, reply to the person directly using the address in the saved entry.