When using WordPress on localhost, you may come across situations where you would need to receive an email generated by WordPress or a plugin. By default, the mail functionality is not enabled on WAMP or MAMP on Mac server stacks. However, you can configure them to use Gmail SMTP server but this would require messing with the configuration files. In this article, we will show you how to receive or send WordPress emails from localhost.

First thing you need to do is install and activate WP Mail SMTP plugin on the WordPress installation on your local server. After activation, go to Settings » Email to configure the plugin.

The first option on this screen is the ‘From Email’, you need to enter your Gmail email address here. The next option is From Name which will be used as the name of the sender in outgoing messages. You can enter ‘WordPress’ here. This will make it easier for you to recognize an email. The third option on the screen is for choosing a mailer. The default php mail function will not work on most local server environments without configuring it. So you need to choose ‘Send all WordPress emails via SMTP’.

Now you need to configure the plugin to use Gmail’s SMTP server to send mail. In the SMTP server field, enter smtp.gmail.com and for the port field use 587. For the encryption option you need to choose TLS. Lastly, you need to click on Yes next to authentication, you would need to provide your complete Gmail address, e.g. yourusername@gmail.com and your Gmail password.

That’s all. You can now click on Save Changes button to store your settings. Once your settings are saved, scroll down to the bottom of the page and try sending a test message. After sending yourself a test message, you can check your inbox to see if you have received the message and everything is working fine.

We hope this article helped you receive WordPress emails on localhost. For questions and feedback please leave a comment below or join us on Twitter.