How to Customize WooCommerce Emails: Settings, Templates and Deliverability

To customize WooCommerce emails, open WooCommerce > Settings > Emails. There you set the sender, logo, footer and colours shared by every email and, through Manage, the subject, heading, extra text and format of each one. Code in a child theme covers the rest. If emails land in spam, the fix is mostly outside WooCommerce: a sender address on your own domain and a properly authenticated sending service.

How a WooCommerce email travels from order to inbox

An event such as a new order or a password reset triggers an email. WooCommerce fills a template and hands the message to WordPress's wp_mail() function, which by default uses your host's mail function. A mail server passes it to the recipient's provider, which checks who is sending it and chooses between inbox and spam.

WooCommerce's email troubleshooting guide says many missing emails come from the host's mail function or from delivery. Checked in October 2026 against WooCommerce 11.2; older versions may differ.

Which emails does WooCommerce send?

The email settings documentation lists these. Extensions, themes and newer features can add more, so your own Emails screen is the final list.

Order Details is sent by hand from the Edit order screen with invoice details and a payment link, and cannot be disabled. Review request is a beta feature, with the feature and the email both off by default. The documentation does not say which other emails are on by default, so check each Enable box.

How do you customize WooCommerce emails in the settings?

Sender options

Set the From name and address, using an address on your site's domain, as the documentation recommends. Add 'Reply-to' email is off by default. Switched on, it changes only where replies go.

Logo, footer and colours

Email improvements, introduced in WooCommerce 9.8, are on by default for new stores according to the 9.8 release post. Older stores can switch them on at WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features. With them on you can set a Logo, Logo width, Header alignment, Font family and Footer text (placeholders {site_title} and {site_url}), plus a Color palette: Sync with theme, Accent color, Email background, Content background, Heading & text and Secondary text. With them off, Logo width, Header alignment and Font family are shown as unavailable.

Edit one email

Select Manage. The fields are Enable/Disable, the recipients for emails to your team, Subject, Email heading, Additional content, Email type, and Cc and Bcc (hidden for Reset password, New account and Confirm email address). Subject and heading accept placeholders such as {site_title} and {order_number}. Additional content suits a thank-you line or a returns-policy link.

Preview and test

The Email Preview section shows a template on desktop or mobile, and Send a test email sends it to any address.

How do you override email templates safely?

Settings cover most needs. For the rest, go in this order.

1. Hooks first. Templates contain hooks that add or move content without editing the files, which avoids upgrade problems, according to the template structure guide. Two examples are woocommerce_email_before_order_table and woocommerce_email_after_order_table.
2. Then an override in a child theme. Core templates live in /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/templates/; changes there are lost on update. Copy the file into a woocommerce folder in your child theme, keeping the structure but dropping /templates/. The documentation's example copies emails/admin-new-order.php to wp-content/themes/storefront-child/woocommerce/emails/admin-new-order.php. The shared pieces are email-header.php, email-footer.php and email-styles.php (the CSS), and plain text versions sit in emails/plain/.

An override is a frozen copy: core templates update but overrides do not, and System Status can warn that a copy is out of date, for example "version 3.5.0 is out of date. The core version is 3.7.0". Check the bottom of WooCommerce > Status > System Status after each update. The guide to fixing outdated templates says to back up your file, copy the current default from the plugin's templates folder and reapply your changes. There is no one-click fix. If you switch on Email improvements, preview overrides written for the old design first.

Why do WooCommerce emails go to spam, and what helps?

The receiving provider decides, so no setting can promise the inbox. You can remove the usual causes.

1. Check it was sent. Open WooCommerce > Status > Logs and choose the transactional-emails source. Each attempt is Sent, Failed (with a reason), Disabled or Skipped. Sent means handed over, not delivered.
2. Send from your own domain. The documentation says Gmail or Yahoo addresses often cause filtering or blocking, and Google's sender guidelines warn against impersonating Gmail.
3. Authenticate the domain. SPF is a DNS record listing the servers allowed to send for your domain. DKIM is a digital signature that receivers check against a key in your DNS. DMARC tells receivers what to do when those checks fail, and expects the From domain to match. Your sending provider gives you the values to add at your DNS host. Google asks all senders for SPF or DKIM, valid DNS records and TLS, and senders above 5,000 messages a day to Gmail for SPF, DKIM and DMARC together. WooCommerce's sender requirements post recommends authentication for every store.
4. Use a sending service. WooCommerce suggests a dedicated SMTP provider over your server's mail function, connected by a plugin or your host. That post names WP Mail SMTP and MailPoet as example plugins: vet your choice as in the best WooCommerce plugins guide.

Password-reset and other WordPress emails are usually missing from that log, so use your SMTP provider's logs.

Transactional or marketing, plain text or HTML, with or without a PDF?

Transactional emails confirm what a customer did: orders, refunds, accounts and password resets. Marketing emails, such as newsletters and promotions, are another job. WooCommerce says their sender settings live in your email marketing platform, and Google asks bulk senders for one-click unsubscribe on them and advises against mixing promotions into sales receipts. Consent rules differ by country, so check yours. Abandoned-cart reminders sit between the two: see reducing cart abandonment.

Email type offers Plain Text, HTML or Multipart, which sends both and lets the mail app pick.

The core emails in the documentation have no PDF attachment setting, so invoice PDFs need a plugin. PDF Invoices & Packing Slips for WooCommerce on DevMarket generates PDFs on your server and attaches the invoice to the customer's Processing order and Completed order emails. Its page says Arabic script is not supported in this version and makes no e-invoicing claim: read it, and our VAT and invoices guide, first.

Arabic and right-to-left emails

• Language. WooCommerce's code switches customer emails to the site language, so set that as in our Arabic WordPress guide. A bilingual store needs a multilingual plugin that translates emails, and text you type into Subject, Heading, Additional content or the footer stays in the language you typed.
• Direction. When the site language is right to left, the default header template sets dir="rtl" on the email wrapper and the default styles flip alignment and spacing. Overrides and third-party email plugins may not.
• Fonts. Font family offers common system fonts such as Arial, Tahoma and Verdana, not an Arabic web font. The reader's device supplies the glyphs, and web font support varies between mail apps, so test.
• Mixed text. English names, order numbers and links inside Arabic sentences can display in an unexpected order, so read test emails on a phone.

A testing checklist

1. Open each email you use and check Enable, recipients and the From address.
2. Preview every template on desktop and mobile, then send a test email to the mail providers your customers use.
3. Place test orders for each path: bank transfer, paid, completed, refunded, a customer note, a new account and a password reset.
4. Read the transactional-emails log and your SMTP provider's log, look in spam folders, and send one store email to a mail-testing service such as mail-tester.com, as WooCommerce's sender post suggests.
5. On a staging copy set to Arabic, read the emails on a phone.
6. After every update, repeat steps 2 and 3 and check System Status.

Frequently asked questions

Why are my WooCommerce emails not sending?

Confirm one should be sent: orders in Pending payment trigger no email, and the email may be disabled. Then read the transactional-emails log. If it says Sent, check your host's mail function and SMTP setup.

Do I need a plugin to customize emails?

Not for a logo, colours, footer text or subject lines. Deeper layout changes need overrides or a plugin.

Can I send a test email?

Yes. The Email Preview section has a Send a test email option. Older versions may not show it.

Are WooCommerce emails automatically in Arabic?

Partly. Customer emails use the site language, but your own text, fonts and layouts still need a check.

Next steps

If you are still building the store, start with how to set up WooCommerce, then follow how to build an Arabic WordPress website. You can browse WooCommerce plugins on DevMarket.