How to Change the Sender Name in WordPress Mail

If you have an online business (or, in fact, any business at all), then you are probably aware of how important email is when it comes to communicating with your subscribers and potential customers. Say that you have any products or services to sell – the most efficient and cost-effective way to promote them is to leverage the power of email marketing. Similarly, you can easily reach the users of your WordPress site via email and send them different notifications, including user account verifications, password reset, notifications related to their product orders, and more.

All these are more than enough reasons to make sure that your email is working properly at all times. But besides ensuring your emails are being sent, you also need to make certain that people know who is sending them. This is something you can do by changing the mail sender name in your outgoing WordPress email. Stick around as we share different methods to change both the sender name and the mail address on your WordPress site.

We will cover:

Why You Should Change the Sender Name and Email in WordPress

By default, the sender name in WordPress that users see when they receive email notifications from you is “WordPress”, with the non-existent email address labeled [email protected]. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many spam filters view these addresses as spam, which results in many of them being blocked. If your WordPress email address gets marked as spam too often, your server can receive a bad reputation, which can lead to some email providers blocking your emails altogether.

By changing your sender name and email address, you will prevent your email notifications from being labeled as spam, ensuring that they reach their destination every time. Plus, if you use your own name in your emails, you can increase awareness of your brand among your subscribers by a long shot.

Let’s take a look at how you can change the default sender name and email address in WordPress. We will go through the necessary steps using two different plugins, and we’ll also show you how to do it manually using code.

Changing the Default Sender Name and Email Using the WP Mail SMTP Plugin

When it comes to changing the default sender name and email, it’s safe to say that this plugin is the best solution for your WordPress site.

With over 1 million active installations, WP Mail SMTP is the most popular SMTP plugin around that lets you change your default email address as well as the sender name with complete ease. In addition, it fixes your email deliverability by reconfiguring the WordPress mailing function to use a proper SMTP provider when sending your emails. During this process, the plugin makes sure that emails are sent using the provider’s direct API, so even if your web host is blocking SMTP ports, your emails will reach all the intended targets.

First things first, you should install the plugin and activate it. Then, go ahead and access WP Mail SMTP >> Settings in your WordPress admin dashboard.

Over there, in the Mail section of the screen, you should enter the email address which emails are going to be sent from, as well as the sender name.

Also, you should make sure that the “Force From Email” and “Force From Name” boxes are checked. This will ensure that the settings will override values set by any other plugin you may have installed.

Next, in the Mailer section, you should pick one of the available mailing service providers to set up the SMTP server. You don’t want to use the default mailer method, since it’s less dependable than others.

Whichever option you pick, the plugin will provide the appropriate link to the documentation that will help you set up and configure the mailing service provider and improve the deliverability of your email.

Once you connect the plugin with your SMTP service provider, you should hit the Save Settings button.

Now, click the Email Test tab to send a test email that will allow you to check if your email is set and working properly.

Here you can insert the email address you wish to send the test email to. Just click the Send Email button once you’re done and check your mail inbox to see if you can receive emails.

Changing the Default Sender Name and Email Using the CB Change Mail Sender Plugin

This is an alternative option that you can use if for some reason the first plugin doesn’t end up working for you, or if you don’t use the SMTP service.

That being said, with the CB Change Mail Sender plugin, you can only change your sender name and email address and can’t check your email deliverability. However, you can always test if your email is working properly by carrying out some tasks that trigger WordPress notifications that get sent by email. For example, you can do this by creating a new user, requesting a reset of your password, etc.

After installing and activating the CB Change Mail Sender plugin, go to CB Mail Sender in your WordPress dashboard. The plugin is pretty simple and straightforward to use – you only need to enter your sender name and email and hit the Save Changes button and that’s it. Once you configure these settings, the email address and name you inserted will be shown to users when they receive an email from you.

Changing the Sender Name and Email Address Manually

Another way to change the default email and sender name is by using a PHP function. To do this, you need to paste the following code snippets into your functions.php file by going to Appearance >> Themes >> functions.php. This code will replace the default WordPress email address and sender name with your own.

The code to change your email address:

add_filter( 'wp_mail_from', 'sender_email' );
function sender_email( $original_email_address ) {
return '[email protected]';
}

The code to change your sender name:

add_filter( 'wp_mail_from_name', 'sender_name' );
function sender_name( $original_email_from ) {
return 'Your Name';
}

Paste these two pieces of code at the very bottom of your function.php file, modify them with your own email and name, and save your changes.

Wrapping Up

Emails are an important part of everyday communication between people in all spheres of life, and the same goes for your website and its users. That’s why you must ensure that your emails are reaching the intended recipients and prevent them from ending up in spam by changing the default sender name and email address on your WordPress site. We recommend using the WP Mail SMTP plugin as it offers the most comprehensive range of options, while CB Change Mail Sender can be your alternative option in case something goes awry with the first one. And, if all else fails, you always have the option to insert the code snippets we presented above directly into your functions.php file.