Transferring contact form input to an email account without using an email-proxy

The CF7 plugin uses WordPress built-in wp_mail() function which itself uses the PHPMailer class (github repo). The PHPMail github documentation states,

The PHP mail() function usually sends via a local mail server, typically fronted by a sendmail binary on Linux, BSD and OS X platforms, however, Windows usually doesn’t include a local mail server; PHPMailer’s integrated SMTP implementation allows email sending on Windows platforms without a local mail server.

I have not used Digital Ocean servers myself, I use hosting services that offer a cpanel interface with mail configurations. Anyhow, reading Digital Ocean forums it seems that you should be able to install sendmail directly. See this forum thread with more details.

If you are able to install sendmail and the mails are still not working on your server, I would recommend that you install the PHPMailer packckage from the GitHub repo I linked above and execute a test mail programmatically and log the full error message into your debug log file so understand where the error is coming from, and google your error to see if you can get more information on to how to solve it.

If you are not able to get sendmail to work, then I would recommend the SMTP route as proposed in @Bram answer. If you have your own email server, you should be able to configure its SMTP credentials/port and use that to configure the settings in an SMTP plugin (I use the Easy SMTP mailer plugin on my localhost as I do not have sendmail setup on my linux machine). The mail will be sent from your own email server to itself, achieving your goal.

Related Posts:

  1. Contact form sender email
  2. Is Postfix required for WordPress contact forms in general?
  3. Email address used by website but I do not know where
  4. Dynamically send pdf attached to post with contact form 7 [closed]
  5. Contact Form 7 + Configure SMTP: Sender email appearing as my own email [closed]
  6. Obfuscating Email Addresses in Form Fields
  7. How to validate website field in contact form 7?
  8. Mail function is not working
  9. show a little contact form in homepage without plugin
  10. Receive no any emails from contact from 7 wordpress
  11. Is it possible to use different from email in contact form 7 with different domain?
  12. Use [from-email] from the contact form as sender’s email
  13. Contact Form 7 How to Alter the From email address?
  14. WordPress stops executing code after the require() method
  15. Contact forms not sending mails
  16. Contact Form 7 – E-mail message template [closed]
  17. SMTP connect() failed PHPmailer – PHP
  18. What is the difference between ports 465 and 587?
  19. How do you update user_email on the front end in WP 3.3?
  20. User Without Email?
  21. How to get current post ID in Contact Form 7 wpcf7_before_send_mail hook action
  22. Email confirmation on registration
  23. Customizing lost password email
  24. How do i send mail with custom Form Data using WordPress
  25. Fwd: [Website Name] Notice of Email Change [closed]
  26. Send all WPMU emails via SMTP
  27. using 1 form shortcode (si or cf7) for all multisite sites [closed]
  28. Locked out of my own blog and password reset not working
  29. How to add line breaks to $email[‘body’] when using auto_core_update_email hook
  30. How to sent one form values to 2 different sites in wordpress
  31. General Setting Allow Multiple Email Notification
  32. Can I configure WordPress to use postfix without a plugin?
  33. other shortcodes in Contact form 7 MAILS [closed]
  34. Trigger WordPress Actions from Email?
  35. How to change WordPress email notification sender?
  36. Attaching a pdf to Contact Form 7 e-mail via functions.php [closed]
  37. WordPress Add New User – Send an Activation Email
  38. Send email only upon draft
  39. Sending emptys emails every day, How stop it?
  40. Emails marked as spam because it’s contain via box4231.bluehost.com
  41. How to change the text of automatic E-Mails e.g. after changing your password? (German localization)
  42. WordPress reset password email is not working – woocommerce and checkmail does work
  43. How do I make WordPress send an email to the user when his account gets approved (manual by me)
  44. User registration email and let user choose pasword
  45. Correctly configure SPF/DMARC record to work with WordPress [closed]
  46. Share pdf with a friend via email [closed]
  47. Make a form that will send email to all the authors in selected category [closed]
  48. How to set up a simple email subscription?
  49. Email user on WordPress upgrade
  50. Send bulk emails without timeout
  51. How to send post notification when a Author and Contributor post?
  52. Prevent sending emails on user creation in OOP context?
  53. WordPress get_the_content losing formatting when emailed
  54. Mailing list sign up form without plugin
  55. Retrieve duration since sign up
  56. WordPress Won’t Send Email When a User Register
  57. Is it possible to not receive email notifications for comments?
  58. Confirmation required on users email change
  59. wp_mail not sending email on custom function
  60. Changing wordpress admin email [closed]
  61. Change email address change notice from WordPress
  62. Contact Form 7 If Condition
  63. Getting image in mail
  64. WP stopped emailing notifications about new comments
  65. How to prevent the scheduling of the same event on the same day
  66. How to change the format of the subcriber email
  67. wp_mail() won’t send mail when it’s a variable, only when hard coded
  68. Resend password chosen by WP administrator? [duplicate]
  69. Send email for confirmation during user registration
  70. Email from my theme’s contact form doesn’t get the reply-to address right
  71. I just had an email from wordpress. what does it mean?
  72. In wordpress how to sent different email separetly when i click on different email ids [closed]
  73. Alternative to email notification system?
  74. phpmailer reply to message id using AddCustomHeader
  75. Email form getting hacked
  76. About Custom Email Template Design Responsive
  77. Is it secure to use SMTP password in .php file in WordPress website?
  78. Send email using wordpress plugin on behalf of someone with their permission
  79. How to apply a function to the value $email of get_user_by to override email_exists?
  80. WordPress won’t let me change my administration email address
  81. wp_mail send multiple emails in a loop
  82. Can’t change headers / From for wp_mail()
  83. Contact Form 7 – multiple recepients
  84. How to customize ‘WordPress’ in sent email using wp_mail function?
  85. New user notification issue
  86. E-Mail Notification on post edit
  87. Why do WordPress emails to multiple recipients include \n in the list
  88. Whitelist email sent by WordPress
  89. delete of @ in emailaddress when starting unsubscribe link in url
  90. Showing “diaplay_name”
  91. Send Custom Post Notification to Followers
  92. Get emails of register user in WordPress
  93. Send email from WordPress
  94. Email setting in wordpress
  95. Not able to override pluggable function with a mu_plugin
  96. Display “a generated one [avatar] based on their e-mail address”
  97. Allow users to register as a higher role than default with code
  98. Send email once every 12 months to a particular user [closed]
  99. What’s the simplest way to send WordPress posts to a Mailchimp list? [closed]
  100. Postfix – how to retry delivery of mail in queue?

Leave a Comment