Sender name, address and the Force settings
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What From Email, From Name, Force From Email, Force From Name and Return Path do, and when you should force them.
Every email your site sends carries a sender address and a sender name. This article explains the five sender settings on the General tab and helps you decide when to force them. It is for anyone setting up CRM-NG SMTP or wondering why some emails show a different sender.
You find all five at CRM-NG SMTP → Settings → General, at the top of the page.
From Email
From Email is the address your emails are sent from. It is what people reply to unless a message sets its own reply address.
Choose it carefully:
- Use an address on your own domain, such as
info@yourdomain.com. Receivers check that your mail service is allowed to send for that domain. An address on a domain you do not control (for example a free webmail address while sending through SendGrid) fails those checks and lands in spam. - If you send through a mailbox provider (Gmail, Microsoft 365, Zoho Mail, Outlook.com and so on), the From Email must be that account's address, or an alias the account is allowed to use.
- If your mail service asks you to verify senders or domains, the From Email must be one it has verified.
Other plugins (form builders, shops, membership plugins) can set their own sender address on the emails they create. By default those choices win. That is what the next setting is for.
Force From Email
When Force From Email is ticked, the From Email above is used for every email, and addresses set by other plugins are ignored.
Tick it when:
- Your mail service only accepts verified senders. A form plugin that uses the visitor's address as the sender would otherwise be rejected.
- You want one consistent, authenticated sender for the whole site.
Leave it unticked when:
- You deliberately send from several addresses, each verified with your mail service, and you set them in each plugin.
Some mailers decide this for you. With Google / Gmail, the plugin always uses the address of the Google account you connected (or an alias you registered with Google), and you see "Current provider will automatically force From Email to be the email address that you use to set up the OAuth connection below." With Zoho Mail, the sender is always the mailbox address or one of its aliases. With 365 / Outlook, the From Email must be a mailbox in your Microsoft 365 tenant.
For a closer look at forcing, see Using Force From Email.
From Name
From Name is the name that appears next to your address in the inbox, for example "Acme Bakery". Keep it short and recognisable. People decide whether to open or report an email based on this name.
Force From Name
When Force From Name is ticked, the From Name above is used for every email, ignoring names set by other plugins. Tick it if you want the same name on every message. Leave it unticked if, for example, your shop plugin should send as "Acme Orders" while your forms send as "Acme Bakery".
With Google / Gmail, this option is not available: Google sends with the name on the Google account, and the plugin shows "Current provider doesn't support setting and forcing From Name."
Return Path
Return Path decides where bounce messages go: the automatic "could not deliver" replies from receiving servers. When ticked, bounces go back to your From Email, so you learn about addresses that no longer work. If unticked, bounce messages may be lost.
This setting is used by the Other SMTP mailer. API-based services handle bounces on their own side and report them in their dashboards, or to the plugin through Delivery and bounce webhooks.
A sensible default
For most sites:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| From Email | An address on your own domain, verified with your mail service |
| Force From Email | Ticked |
| From Name | Your business or site name |
| Force From Name | Ticked, unless plugins need their own names |
| Return Path | Ticked (Other SMTP only) |
Click Save Settings, then send a test from CRM-NG SMTP → Tools → Email Test to check the result.
Fixing these in wp-config.php
If you want to lock the sender so nobody can change it from the admin screens, set it with constants such as CRMNG_SMTP_MAIL_FROM and CRMNG_SMTP_MAIL_FROM_FORCE in wp-config.php. See Securing settings with wp-config constants.