Updated: Jun 24, 2025 By: Marios

When building WordPress websites, web designers often find themselves needing to implement basic email functionality – whether it's for contact forms, notifications, or simple alerts. While WordPress provides its function for sending emails, understanding the native PHP function can help designers take more control and troubleshoot issues more effectively.

In this article, we’ll break down how web designers can leverage the PHP function in WordPress projects, when to use it, and why sometimes you’re better off with WordPress-native solutions.

What is the PHP mail function?

The mail function of PHP is an in-built application that enables the mailing of emails directly through PHP code. It offers an easy manner to send messages by filling in the email address of the recipient, subject, message body, and some optional headers. In that it is simple and used extensively, the mail function has some notable limitations that web designers and developers ought to know before considering its use in their initiatives.

In this case, it will be the email of the person receiving the mail and has to be in the correct format or format of an email, mostly as per the RFC 2822 standard. The subject is the subject line, and the body content is called the message. Carriage return and line feed characters, \r\n, should be used to separate lines in the message, and it is also suggested that a line should not be longer than 70 characters.

The most important parameter of the headers is the one under the header “From,” determining the address of the sender of the email. Unless we have a valid header of “From,” the function would either show errors or would not send. The header can also contain other recipients through CC or BCC, and it should be well-formatted.

The function is suitable for sending raw text email; however, it does not support SMTP authentication or more complex features of emails (tracking, attachments, and errors, e.g., automatic recovery, etc.). This is susceptible to email injection and capable of causing serious deliverability problems.

Messages sent with mail() are more dependent on proper server mail configuration, and messages will be considered spam or rejected by email companies without correct configuration. Additionally, the bounce-backs and failures are not reported, as the function does not rely on SPF or DKIM authentication.

HTML email can also be sent, but one would have to manually add the right MIME header and formulate HTML-compliant bodies of messages, which may be a little technical. To communicate with more than one addressee, addresses must be separated by commas in the two parameters.

When should web designers use PHP's mail function?

Having familiarized yourself with the mechanisms and principles of the PHP email function and how this can be operated, the next logical question would be what and when, as a web designer, should you consider the use of such a specific type of PHP function in your WordPress voyage? Though WordPress comes with a very solid feature to send email, sometimes it is handy to be familiar with the core option of mail over PHP – mail. It can be particularly useful to someone who requires more granular control over it or uses it to make sure that email transmission works properly. 

The PHP mail can be used in the process of sending single and free-form emails. Those may be simple notifications such as contact form submissions, password request emails, or simple system messages that contain no formatting features or attachments. Being an inbuilt PHP function, it takes effect in nearly all PHP environments. One does not have to install additional libraries or plugins. This is appealing to minimalist, lightweight applications that have very simple email needs. 

The other benefit of the PHP mail function is that it is easy to syntax. Advanced developers who also know PHP have access to the internal mailing-out mechanism. It enables modifying email headers, recipients, and message bodies in any way without resorting to abstraction layers. This method can be helpful in situations when you desire to customize the process of sending out emails to meet certain demands. It also helps when diagnosing the delivery problem that can be related to the interaction of WordPress or the plug-ins with the mail system.

However, it should be taken into consideration that there are great drawbacks and dangers to using email in real work, such as building WordPress websites. This is very dependent on the proper mail configuration of the hosting server, and without the effective mail configuration of the SMTP servers, the mail sent through PHP email is more prone to be called spam or simply rejected. In contrast to more current mailing options, the PHP mail does not support SMTP authentication by default, which most mail servers require to establish sender identity and increase email delivery success. 

Another considerable issue is security. Since mail is not itself protected from injection attacks of emails, a script where malicious users access the mail-enabled email addresses and use the email header fields to send spam or harmful content is an additional measure that is required. To prevent the opening of security holes, web designers should make sure that every input made by the user is properly sanitized prior to being delivered to the mail function. 

By contrast, the native email function available on WordPress extends the mail method but provides additional optional parameters and works with the WordPress API, including the use of SMTP authentication, as well as a secure way to pass through header lines and content. Most of the WordPress SMTP plugins also tend to increase email stability by sending out messages via authenticated SMTP servers instead of using the default mail system of the server.

How you can maximize your email functionality

The use of email functionalities in your WordPress projects necessitates the optimization of the functionality to guarantee reliability in delivering the emails, a better user experience, and not ending up in the spam. Regardless of whether you are using the native PHP email command of the PHP language or one of the mail functions in WordPress like PHP email, here are some of how you can maximize the email system that you are using:

1. Apply authentication with SMTP

Your server and mail transfer agent might not be properly authenticated by default via the email mechanism of the PHP language. This may cause your emails to be considered/ marked as spam or rejected. Rather than that, make your site deliver emails using an authenticated SMTP server. Such an easy process is done with a WordPress SMTP plugin such as WP Mail SMTP or Post SMTP, which work wonders in higher delivery rates.

2. Put in the correct email headers

You should add properly constructed headers so that email clients easily comprehend your message as From, Reply-To, CC, BCC, and MIME-Version. With HTML Mail, the correct header to use at all times is Content-Type with either text/html or text/plain as the text type, and the correct character encoding at all times to avoid display failure.

3. User input sanitize validate 

Sanitize and validate any user-supplied data before inserting it into email headers or email bodies to prevent injection-type attacks, including email injection attacks. This blocks the chances of manipulation of your email system by malicious users.

 4. Test emails finesse 

Use real email addresses and mix up various mail clients regularly to test your email functions. Mail trap or Mail hog services allow receiving emails sent out of development environments without sending them out, and are therefore safer and easier to test than sending actual emails.

 5. Manage dispute reversals and mistakes

Put logging, or error-handling, in place to record dropped deliveries or bounce backs. Although by default the email function in PHP does not report delivery failures, it could give feedback with the advanced solutions or SMTP services, which will help you to have a healthy email system.

 6. Restriction of email limit 

Do not send too many emails, by avoiding overwhelming your users and getting subjected to spam filters. That is, as an example, use batch notifications or implement delayed as needed. These best practices will allow you to boost the email capability of your website to a large degree and make sure that any messages delivered to you are delivered to the inbox and are safe and secure.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, getting WordPress to send emails doesn’t have to be a headache. The two essentials are a reliable SMTP service and some smart tweaks to the PHP Mailer class to make everything run smoothly.

But sending emails is just the start. It’s equally important to track whether your messages reach inboxes and how recipients engage with them. That’s why investing in a solid email delivery platform – one that goes beyond just SMTP – can make all the difference in building trust and keeping your communications effective.

With the right tools and attention, your WordPress emails won’t just be sent – they’ll fly.