When WooCommerce emails go missing, it costs real money: you do not see new orders, and customers do not get the receipt they expect and start asking whether they were charged. The cause is almost always one of three things: an email switched off or sent to the wrong address, an order status that never triggers the email, or WordPress being unable to deliver email at all.
WooCommerce sends through WordPress’s own mail function, so the general fix applies: How to fix WordPress not sending email.
1. Check WooCommerce’s email settings
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Emails.
- Open the email that is missing (for example New order or Processing order) and make sure it is enabled.
- For store emails such as New order, check the Recipient(s) field. It defaults to the site’s administration email, which may not be the inbox you watch.
- At the bottom, under the email sender options, set the From address to an address on your store’s own domain.
2. Check the order status
WooCommerce sends emails when an order changes status, not when it is created:
- New order (to you) is sent when an order moves to Processing or On hold.
- Processing order (to the customer) is sent when payment is confirmed.
- Completed order is sent when you mark the order complete.
If missing orders sit in Pending payment, no email was ever due. That usually means the customer abandoned checkout, or the payment gateway could not tell your store the payment succeeded (a failing webhook or callback). Fix the gateway connection and the emails follow.
To test without placing real orders, open an existing order and use Order actions → Resend new order notification. If that email arrives, the settings and sending work, and the problem is order status.
3. Test whether WordPress can send email
Request a password reset from your store’s login page. If that email also never arrives, WordPress cannot send mail, and every store email is affected. WordPress uses the server’s PHP mail function by default; many hosts block or limit it, and its messages carry no SPF or DKIM for your domain, which Gmail and Outlook now treat as suspicious.
The fix is to send through an authenticated mail service. See how to fix WordPress not sending email or send WooCommerce email through SecureSMTP.
4. Emails are sent but customers do not see them
Receipts that reach the customer’s spam folder are almost always an authentication problem: the From address is not on a domain whose SPF and DKIM cover your sending service. Our SPF vs DKIM vs DMARC guide explains the three records, and the deliverability checklist covers the rest.
With SecureSMTP, every WooCommerce email is DKIM-signed and appears in your delivery log as delivered or bounced, so when a customer says they never got a receipt you can check in seconds.
Frequently asked questions
Why did I not get a new order email for an order?
Most often the order never reached Processing or On hold. Orders that stay in Pending payment, for example because the payment gateway never confirmed the payment, do not trigger the new order email.
How do I resend a WooCommerce order email?
Open the order, choose the email from the Order actions box (for example Resend new order notification, or send order details to the customer) and click the arrow to run it.
Why do customers say the receipt went to spam?
The store’s email is probably sent without SPF and DKIM for your domain, or from an address on a different domain. Send from your own domain through an authenticated mail service.