Meow Mailer – Free SMTP, Everything Included

1. 01Upload the meow-mailer folder to /wp-content/plugins/ , or install it from the Plugins screen.
2. 02Activate the plugin.
3. 03Go to Meow Apps > Meow Mailer , open the Settings tab, choose your provider and enter its credentials.
4. 04Send a test email to confirm everything works. Watch the Logs tab.

On a Multisite network, you can also network activate the plugin, then turn on Shared Settings on the main site to configure the provider once for every site.

Can I use more than one provider at a time?

Not for routing, no, and that’s on purpose. One active provider keeps configuration simple and predictable, and you can switch any time in Settings. What you can do is name a second one as a fallback: it never touches your email until the main provider refuses one, so nothing is lost to a bad afternoon.

What should I pick as a fallback?

If you have a second provider account, use that. If you don’t, pick WordPress: it hands the email to your own server, which is nobody’s idea of good deliverability, but it is always there and it needs no setup at all. Delivered imperfectly beats not delivered when it’s a password reset.

If you do use a second provider, publish its SPF and DKIM records for your domain, exactly like your main one. Otherwise the rescued email is accepted, delivered, and quietly filed as spam, which is harder to notice than a plain failure. Test it with the Test Fallback button rather than waiting to find out during an outage.

Can I send bounces to a different address?

Yes. Set a Return Path in Settings and non-delivery reports go there instead of to your From address, which is left exactly as recipients see it. Leave it empty and bounces follow the From address, as they always have.

This is the SMTP envelope sender, so it applies to Generic SMTP. The API providers put their own envelope around your message and handle bounces on their own side, so the field does nothing there. If you need a different bounce address per email, filter mwmail_return_path , which receives the address and the message it belongs to.

Does it store my email password?

For SMTP and API providers, credentials are stored in the WordPress database. You can instead define them as PHP constants in wp-config.php (e.g. MWMAIL_SMTP_PASSWORD ) to keep them out of the database. Gmail, Microsoft 365 and Zoho Mail use OAuth 2.0, so no password is ever stored. Microsoft 365 App-only stores its certificate or client secret like any other credential, and MWMAIL_MICROSOFT_CERTIFICATE can also be the path to a PEM file outside your web root.

Can the stored credentials be encrypted?

Yes. The Security section of the settings has an Enable Encryption button. Once on, every password, API key and OAuth token is stored encrypted, using the security keys in your wp-config.php . This protects against a copy of the database being read (a backup, a dump, a staging clone). It does not protect against someone who can read your files, since the keys are there too.

It is off by default for one reason: if those security keys change (a migration, a restore onto another site, a security plugin rotating them), the stored credentials cannot be read anymore and email stops until you enter them again. The plugin tells you when that happens, in the settings and with an admin notice, rather than failing quietly. Export your settings before moving a site, or define MWMAIL_ENCRYPTION_KEY in wp-config.php to pin a key that survives rotation.

What does Offline Mode do?

When enabled, no email is sent. Every message WordPress tries to send is recorded in the log instead. Ideal for staging sites where you don’t want real emails going out.

Does it work on Multisite?

Yes, and you can set it up once for the whole network. Activate it as usual (network activate works too), then on the main site turn on Shared Settings : every site of the network will send through the same provider, configured once from the main site. Subsites see that section as managed elsewhere and cannot change it, so nobody can reconfigure the network by accident.

You decide how far the sharing goes. The provider is always shared once the option is on. The sender details (From address, name, Reply-To) and the delivery options (background send, logging, retention) are each optional, so you can share the mail account but let every site keep its own From address, which is usually what you want since each site has its own domain.

Email logs are never shared. Each site keeps its own log and only ever sees its own emails.

Leave Shared Settings off and nothing changes: every site configures itself, exactly like a standalone install.

Will it work with WooCommerce / contact form plugins?

Yes. Meow Mailer intercepts WordPress’s standard wp_mail() , which is what those plugins use.

What does Background Send do?

When enabled, the page is returned to your visitor immediately and the email is sent a moment later in the background, so a slow mail server never slows down your site. The email shows as “Pending” in the log, then updates to Sent or Failed.

How do I connect Gmail or Microsoft 365?

Both use OAuth 2.0, so no password is stored. Create an OAuth app (Google Cloud Console for Gmail, Azure Portal for Microsoft 365), paste the Client ID and Secret into the provider settings, add the shown redirect URI to your OAuth app, then click Connect.

If you would rather nobody signs in, for example when you build a site for a client, pick Microsoft 365 (App-only) instead. In Entra ID, give your app registration the Microsoft Graph Mail.Send application permission with admin consent, and upload a certificate or create a client secret. Then enter the tenant, client ID, credential and the mailbox to send from. A shared mailbox works and needs no license.