Websites typically send various automated messages, such as contact form submissions, order confirmations, and password reset emails. This guide explains how Seravo’s service ensures email delivery and how you can troubleshoot issues yourself.
How are emails sent from our service?
At Seravo, the delivery of website emails is built directly into the service, so no separate email plugin is required.
Delivery Method: WordPress automatically uses the PHP
mail()function.Relay Service: All outgoing mail is routed through the SendGrid service.
Monitoring: We monitor email volumes and ensure messages are successfully handed over from the server to SendGrid. However, we do not individually monitor the delivery of messages from SendGrid to the final recipient.
Domain Settings (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC)
To ensure that receiving servers (such as Gmail or Outlook) trust your messages, your domain’s DNS records must contain the correct entries: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
If Seravo manages your DNS: We add the necessary records automatically. You can also modify these records yourself using the Seravo Plugin.
If you manage your DNS elsewhere: You must manually add the required records following our instructions on SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Limitations and Recommendations
Seravo’s email service is primarily intended for sending system messages (such as order confirmations or notifications from forms).
Mass Mailing: The service is not intended for sending newsletters or large volumes of email. We recommend using a dedicated newsletter service or your own SMTP service/plugin for this purpose. Our service plans include limits on the volume of email traffic.
Attachments: The maximum size for email attachments is relatively small. If you want to share large files, we recommend including a download link in the message instead of attaching the file directly.
Form Protection: To prevent your site from being exploited by spammers, we recommend protecting all forms with a CAPTCHA service. See our instructions on using CAPTCHA.
Troubleshooting Email Issues
Many factors affect email delivery: the recipient's mailbox being full, outdated addresses, or spam filters on the receiving end.
Check the Log Files
The first step is to determine if the message left the site. Check the log files in the /data/log/ directory:
php-mail.log: Shows if the WordPress PHP code called the mail function.mail.log: Shows if the server successfully forwarded the message to SendGrid.
SpamAssassin and Filtering
There is a SpamAssassin filter between the site and SendGrid. Occasionally, a legitimate message may be caught in this filter if it contains suspicious content. If logs show the message was sent but it does not arrive, contact our customer support for a closer look.
Test Delivery via Command Line
You can test email flow with Seravo’s own wp-mail-test tool:
wp-mail-test [email protected]
We also recommend using the Mail-tester.com service for a technical analysis of your email content.
Issues with Microsoft 365
If messages leave Seravo correctly (status 250 in the log) but do not appear in an M365 mailbox, the issue is usually at the receiving end.
Whitelisting IP Addresses: Ask the M365 administrator to whitelist the SendGrid sender addresses used by Seravo:
168.245.98.128and168.245.18.183.Spam Management: The administrator can modify filters or submit the message to Microsoft for analysis. If an external SMTP service is used, the IP addresses for that service can be removed from M365 spam lists using Microsoft's official form.
Need help?
If you have verified through logs that messages are being sent but they still do not arrive, please contact our customer support by sending a message to [email protected].