When your users don't receive emails

If you or your users do not receive email notifications sent from your website, a likely scenario is that the webserver is not authorised to send emails on behalf of your domain.

Authorise email senders with SPF 

To ensure emails arrive at their destination, the sender will need to be authorised to send an email for a certain domain. This is done via SPF entries in your domain management. Google publishes instructions on how to Authorise email senders with SPF

What is an email notification? 

Email notifications can include (amongst others): 

• User account notifications when a new account is set up
• Response to a user who submitted the 'request a new password' form
• Webform submission notifications 
• Workflow moderation notifications 

Why would the webserver send emails on behalf of your domain? 

All email notifications require a 'from' email address, and to assure the receiver of these emails that they come from a credible source, the 'from' address might be set to one of your emails - for example, info@<your-domain>.co.nz. 

Why would the emails not go through? 

Networks, email clients, or email cloud servers might interpret the emails as spam and block them - it's possible that the emails do not even get through to spam folders. 

Other reasons 

Another reason why emails don't arrive at their destination is that your webserver might not send emails in the first place, or might not allow emails to be sent to your domain. Check with your hosting company that your webserver is sending emails.