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✉️ Email Delivery

Documentation, reference material and tutorials for CRM-NG SMTP Email: setup guides for every mail service, troubleshooting, and one article per error message.

Installing and activating CRM-NG SMTP Email

Updated

By Duane GarnerChief Executive Officer (CEO)
Summarize: Claude ChatGPT View Markdown
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Install the plugin, activate it, and understand the first screen and notices you see afterwards.

This article shows you how to install CRM-NG SMTP Email on a WordPress site and what to expect the first time you open it. It is for site owners and administrators setting the plugin up for the first time.

Before you start

Install the plugin

  1. Open the plugin uploader

    In the WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin and click Upload Plugin at the top of the page.

  2. Choose the file

    Click Choose File, pick the CRM-NG SMTP Email .zip file, then click Install Now.

  3. Activate it

    When WordPress says the plugin was installed, click Activate Plugin.

  4. Find the menu

    A new CRM-NG SMTP item appears in the admin sidebar. Click it to open CRM-NG SMTP → Settings.

If you manage the site from the command line, WP-CLI does the same job:

wp plugin install /path/to/crm-ng-smtp.zip --activate

What the first screen shows

The plugin opens on CRM-NG SMTP → Settings → General. Nothing is sent through a mail service yet, because no mailer is chosen. You will see:

  • The sender fields (From Email, From Name and their Force options, plus Return Path).
  • The Mailer list with Default (none) selected, and the warning "You currently have the Default (none) mailer selected, which won't improve email deliverability." That warning goes away once you pick and configure a real mail service.

Until you pick a mailer, WordPress keeps sending email the way it did before: through your web host's built-in PHP mail. That often lands in spam, which is why you installed this plugin. See Default (PHP mail) — why to avoid it.

You can also check Tools → Site Health in WordPress. Its "Is CRM-NG SMTP mailer setup complete?" check reports the setup as incomplete until a mailer is configured. See Site Health checks.

The notice when another mail plugin is already sending

If another mail plugin is already sending this site's email (for example the Email Delivery part of CRM-NG Marketing), CRM-NG SMTP installs in a standby state. It does not touch your email, so nothing breaks the moment you activate it. At the top of the plugin's screens, a blue notice names the plugin that is sending and says that CRM-NG SMTP "is installed but not sending anything."

That is expected. You can set CRM-NG SMTP up and test it while the other plugin keeps working. When a test email through CRM-NG SMTP succeeds, a Make CRM-NG SMTP send my email button appears. The whole process, and how to go back, is in Switching from another mail plugin (hand-over). If you want to copy the old plugin's settings instead of typing them again, see Importing your settings.

If a different mail or SMTP plugin is active, you see a conflict notice that names it instead. Two plugins that both rewrite outgoing email cause unpredictable results. See Testing for plugin and theme conflicts.

Next steps

  1. Pick a mail service: Choosing a mail service.
  2. Fill in the General tab: Setting up CRM-NG SMTP in five minutes.
  3. Prove it works: Sending a test email.
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