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v1.4.7 — Email deliverability hardening

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@tom4cam tom4cam released this 02 May 10:18
· 67 commits to main since this release
v1.4.7
24701e5

Why

Confirmation and reminder emails landing in spam was the #1 friction point in user testing. This release ships every plugin-side improvement that makes a measurable difference, plus a wiki guide for the host-side configuration (SendGrid + SPF/DKIM/DMARC).

Plugin changes

Better headers on every outgoing email

All notifications now go out with:

  • From — your configured From address
  • Reply-To — matched to From so client replies route correctly
  • Message-ID — uniquely identifies each message (some hosts spam-filter mail without one)
  • Date — explicit RFC 2822 timestamp
  • List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:From?subject=Unsubscribe> — Gmail and Outlook give cleaner inbox placement to messages that expose a one-click unsubscribe

Smarter Email Delivery Test

The diagnostic at Settings → Tools & Diagnostics → Email Delivery Test now flags two common deliverability landmines in its result:

  • Free-provider From address (@gmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc.) — DMARC enforcement makes these undeliverable from a custom domain. Use an address on the site domain instead.
  • Domain mismatch — From-address domain ≠ site domain. SPF/DKIM alignment is impossible across domains; receivers treat as spoofed.

Reminder emails now have a visible opt-out

A small "Reply with 'stop reminders'" link in the reminder footer. Combined with the List-Unsubscribe header, this materially improves Gmail's inbox placement for reminder messages (they're closer to "promotional" than confirmations are).

Docs

New wiki page: Email Deliverability — covers SMTP provider selection, full SendGrid walk-through with DNS records, SPF/DKIM/DMARC explained, and verification using the plugin's diagnostic.

Install

WP Admin → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin → choose caswell-booking-1.4.7.zip → Replace current with uploaded → Activate.

After install, do these in order:

  1. Run Settings → Tools → Email Delivery Test with your own email. Note any advisories in the result.
  2. Read Email Deliverability.
  3. Set up an SMTP provider via the WP Mail SMTP plugin (SendGrid recommended for new setups).
  4. Add SPF + DKIM + DMARC DNS records per the wiki.
  5. Re-run the Email Delivery Test to confirm a clean result.
Assets 3
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