How to email your registered users in WordPress

You can email all your registered users, or one role such as your members, from the WordPress dashboard without a marketing service. This guide sets WordPress to send through a mailbox on your Noiz hosting plan, logged in over authenticated SMTP, then sends your message with a free plugin. It is written for a Noiz client on any shared plan, and it keeps you inside your plan's sending limits and South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

Last reviewed: 19 October 2026, against the current WordPress release. This guide is written for Noiz hosting and is kept current against WordPress. It complements, and does not replace, the official WordPress documentation linked below.

Official Documentation Reference

• wp_mail() (WordPress Developer Resources): the function every WordPress email goes through.
• FluentSMTP (WordPress.org plugin directory): the free plugin that connects WordPress to your mailbox.
• Send Users Email (WordPress.org plugin directory): the free plugin that writes to users and roles.
• POPIA section 69: direct marketing by electronic communication: when you may email marketing to people.
• Google email sender guidelines: what Gmail expects of every sender.

Why Site Mail Must Go Out Over Authenticated SMTP

Out of the box, WordPress hands each email to PHP's built-in mail function. That mail leaves the web server with nothing to prove it came from your domain, so Gmail and other providers often file it as spam or refuse it, and WordPress reports success either way. Google now asks every sender to authenticate.

Sending through a real mailbox fixes this. WordPress logs in to your Noiz mailbox with its address and password, exactly as Thunderbird or Outlook does, and the mail goes out as that mailbox. Your password reset emails, form notifications and order emails all benefit, not only the messages in this guide.

Before You Start

• A mailbox to send from, on your Noiz plan, for example [email protected]. A mailbox of its own lets you see replies and bounces in one place. Create one with How to Create an Email Address in Plesk.
• Your domain's SPF and DKIM records in place, so receivers can check the mail is yours: How to Protect Your Domain From Spoofing and Improve Email Deliverability.
• The number of people you will write to. Mail sent from Noiz hosting is subject to sending limits set on the server, which are not printed on your plan. Keep large sends small and spread out (see "Sending to a Large List" below). Bulk mail beyond the server's sending limits can lead to the account being deactivated under our Acceptable Use Policy, even when it is not spam.
• The right to email them (see "What POPIA Allows" below).
• Administrator access to WordPress.

Step 1: Connect WordPress to Your Mailbox With FluentSMTP

FluentSMTP is free, with no paid version, and logs every email your site sends.

1. Go to Plugins > Add New Plugin, search for FluentSMTP, then install and activate it.
2. Open Settings > FluentSMTP and add a new connection.
3. Choose SMTP Server, the general connection, not one of the named email services.
4. Fill in the sender and server details:

5. Where FluentSMTP asks how to keep the credentials, choose Store in wp-config.php. FluentSMTP shows two lines to copy. In Plesk, open Files, edit your site's wp-config.php and paste them above the line that says to stop editing. The password then sits in a file visitors cannot read, rather than in the database, which a vulnerable plugin can expose.
6. Save the connection.

Use port 465. Port 25 no longer accepts a login on Noiz mail servers, and port 587 with STARTTLS also works if a plugin insists on it.

Step 2: Send a Test

1. In FluentSMTP, open Email Test and send a message to an address you own outside your domain, such as a Gmail address.
2. Check it arrives in the inbox, not in spam.
3. Open the message's headers. You should see SPF and DKIM pass for your domain. If either fails, fix the records before you send to anyone else.

Step 3: Write to Your Users With Send Users Email

1. Go to Plugins > Add New Plugin, search for Send Users Email, then install and activate it.
2. Open the plugin's screen for emailing roles and tick the role you want, for example Subscriber. To write to everyone, tick every role.
3. Write the subject and the message. Use the plugin's placeholders to greet each person by name.
4. Preview the message, then send it to yourself first by selecting only your own user on the plugin's Email Users screen.
5. When the test looks right, send to the role.

The free version sends every message at once. That suits a notice to a few dozen users. For a larger list, use the method in the next section, which spreads the sending out.

Step 4: Check What Was Sent

Open Settings > FluentSMTP and then Email Logs. Each message shows as sent or failed, with the server's reply. A failure here names the problem: a wrong password, or a limit reached.

Sending to a Large List: Spread It Out

If your list is large, more than a few dozen people, send through the free Newsletter plugin instead of Send Users Email. It sends through FluentSMTP, so everything in Steps 1 and 2 still applies, and it lets you set the delivery speed, from 12 emails an hour upwards. Set it low, so the send spreads over many hours and stays well inside the server's limits. Newsletter also adds an unsubscribe link and the one-click unsubscribe header that Gmail expects from bulk senders.

To bring your registered users into Newsletter as subscribers, use its free WP Users addon, which comes from the Newsletter website rather than the WordPress directory.

What POPIA Allows

POPIA treats an email that promotes your goods or services as direct marketing. Under section 69 you may send it only:

• to people who have consented to it, or
• to your own customers, about your own similar products or services, when you gave them a chance to object when you collected their details and you give it again in every message.

Every marketing email must say who it is from and give an address where the person can ask you to stop. A notice that is not promoting anything, such as a change to your terms or a security warning about their account, is not direct marketing. If you are unsure which a message is, treat it as marketing.

Troubleshooting

• The test fails with an authentication error: the username must be the full address, the port 465 and the encryption SSL. Check the password by logging in to webmail with it.
• The test arrives in spam: SPF or DKIM is missing or failing for your domain. Check the headers of the test message and fix the records.
• Some users got the message and the rest did not: the server's sending limit was reached part way through. Check the FluentSMTP log for the first failure, wait, and send the rest later, or move to the Newsletter method with a lower speed.
• The From address on the message is not the one you set: another plugin is setting its own From address. Turn on Force From Email in the FluentSMTP connection, so every message uses your mailbox.
• Users reply and nobody sees it: replies go to the sending mailbox. Read it, or forward it to an address you watch with How to Set Up Email Forwarding in Plesk.

Let Noiz Keep It Working

WordPress Care checks after every update cycle that the functions you rely on, such as a contact form, still work. If your mail matters enough that it should not share a server with websites at all, ask us about Private Email on our email hosting page.