Bluehost confirmed that was because the server was set for all emails to be handled by Gmail – seems logical). This was despite the emails being handled by Gmail (and they were working as well – before doing this, I tried setting up an email address on cPanel and wasn’t able to log in to that mailbox. I found my client’s option was set on Local Mail Exchanger. In Aldrin Mercado’s post, he says it should be currently set on Automatically Detect Configuration. You’ll see three options – Automatically Detect Configuration, Local Mail Exchanger, and Remote Mail Exchanger. incoming emails) what server is going to handle your emails (so, in this case, you probably already have Gmail set up to handle your emails for your site).Ĭlick the More button (it’ll expand so you can see and change settings).
![bluehost email canary mail bluehost email canary mail](https://eig-cap-content-cdn-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/bluehost/img/bluehost/email/webmail/bh-email-office-navigation.png)
This is the setting that tells the world (i.e. The section you want here is MX (Mail Exchange). I’d stay away from most of the settings on this page unless you know you need/want to change something specific. As Aldrin points out, it’ll take you to a page titled DNS Zone Editor. Under the Email section, you’ll see a link for MX Entry. I thought I’d write a quick account of my experience fixing this issue and following the steps first set out by Aldrin on his website in case they’re of any use to anyone. However, the fix I found on resolved the problem (and it turned out to be some settings in the MX Record on the Bluehost cPanel…). This is a pretty specific problem and so I’m not sure how many other people have faced this issue.
![bluehost email canary mail bluehost email canary mail](https://instructify.com/wp-content/uploads/bluehost-free-email-with-domain-extension-email.jpg)
He quotes a link to WP Beginner who had a relatively similar post about getting SMTP mails to work for contact forms (you can find that here) I’d been to that post by WP Beginner myself, but hadn’t been able to resolve the problem). Then, I found this great post from which actually resolved the problem.
![bluehost email canary mail bluehost email canary mail](https://www.expression-web-tutorials.com/images/bh-webmail-signon.jpg)
Then, I tried setting up plugins such as Gmail SMTP to route the contact form messages to the Gmail account my client had set up.īluehost support’s suggestion was to try a different plugin and to contact Google and the makers of the plugins I was using to resolve the issue. First, I tried the settings on the Contact Form. I tried a lot of different things to try and fix the problem. What did I do first to try and resolve this Bluehost WordPress SMTP problem? (suggesting that the contact form itself wasn’t the problem). My client also installed the Flamingo plugin which showed the messages that were entered into the contact form and seemed to be accepted. To confirm, I used the popular WordPress plugin Contact Form 7, along with WP-Mail-SMTP. It seems the problem only showed itself when the MX Record was set for Gmail to handle the emails (a popular option as I prefer Gmail myself compared to the usual Cpanel options of Horde etc.).Įssentially, the problem is the email from the contact form doesn’t appear to be sent, despite the contact form displaying a message that the email was sent correctly. I don’t currently host with Bluehost, but I’ve had a client who is and I faced problems that seem specific to Bluehost. It’s possible other people have faced this Bluehost WordPress SMTP problem. Bluehost WordPress SMTP contact form problems when hosted by Bluehost and using Gmail