Where to Find the Confirmation Email Settings in WooCommerce
If you've ever wondered where WooCommerce sends order confirmation emails — or how to find, edit, and test them — you're not alone. It's one of the most common setup questions for new store owners, and the answer involves a few different layers of your WordPress dashboard.
What Is a WooCommerce Confirmation Email?
WooCommerce automatically sends transactional emails triggered by order events. The order confirmation email (formally called the Processing Order email) goes to the customer after a successful payment. There's also a New Order notification that goes to the store admin.
These are built-in, not third-party — WooCommerce handles them natively without any plugin required.
Where to Find WooCommerce Email Settings
All email templates and settings live in one place:
WooCommerce → Settings → Emails
Navigate there from your WordPress admin sidebar. You'll see a full list of every automated email WooCommerce can send, including:
- New Order — admin notification when an order is placed
- Processing Order — the customer-facing confirmation sent after payment
- Completed Order — sent when you mark an order as fulfilled
- Cancelled Order, Refunded Order, Failed Order — status-change notifications
- Customer Invoice / Order Details — manually triggered
- Customer Note — sent when you add a note visible to the customer
- Reset Password and New Account — account-related emails
Each row has an Edit button. Clicking it opens that email's individual configuration panel.
What You Can Configure Inside Each Email
When you open an individual email template (like Processing Order), you'll see these fields:
| Setting | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Enable/Disable | Toggle whether this email sends at all |
| Subject | The subject line customers see in their inbox |
| Email Heading | The large heading inside the email body |
| Additional Content | A text block added below the order details |
| Email Type | Plain text, HTML, or Multipart |
The From name and From address that appear on all outgoing emails are set at the top of the Emails settings page, not inside individual templates.
How to Preview and Test WooCommerce Confirmation Emails 📧
WooCommerce doesn't have a built-in live preview button directly on the settings page, but there are a few practical ways to check what emails actually look like:
Option 1 — Place a test order. Use WooCommerce's built-in Sandbox or a payment gateway's test mode to run a dummy transaction. The confirmation email fires just as it would for a real order.
Option 2 — Use a plugin like WP Mail SMTP or MailHog. These tools can intercept outgoing emails so you can inspect them before they reach real inboxes. WP Mail SMTP also includes an email log that shows what was sent and when.
Option 3 — Resend from an existing order. Go to WooCommerce → Orders, open any order, and look for the Order Actions panel on the right. The dropdown includes options like Resend new order notification or Send invoice to customer. This lets you trigger emails for real orders without placing a new one.
Why Customers Might Not Receive the Confirmation Email
If the settings are correct but emails aren't arriving, the issue is almost never in the WooCommerce email configuration itself. The more common causes:
- Your hosting server's mail function — Many shared hosts have restrictions on outgoing email that cause deliverability problems
- No dedicated SMTP configuration — WooCommerce uses WordPress's default
wp_mail()function, which relies on PHP mail. This frequently gets flagged as spam or blocked entirely - Spam or promotions folder filtering — Customer-side filtering, not a WooCommerce issue
- Email address mismatch — The "From" address doesn't match the sending domain, triggering spam filters
The standard fix is routing WooCommerce emails through an SMTP service (like Gmail SMTP, SendGrid, Mailgun, or Postmark) using a plugin such as WP Mail SMTP or FluentSMTP. This gives your emails a legitimate sending identity and dramatically improves deliverability.
Customizing the Email Template Beyond the Settings Panel
The built-in settings panel handles subject lines and basic content. For design changes — colors, logo, layout — WooCommerce uses template files stored in:
wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/templates/emails/
The correct approach is to copy those files into your theme or child theme at:
wp-content/themes/your-theme/woocommerce/emails/
Editing the originals directly means your changes get wiped on every WooCommerce update. Several plugins (like Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer or YayMail) also offer visual drag-and-drop editors if you'd prefer not to touch template files.
The Variables That Shape Your Setup 🔧
What "finding and configuring confirmation emails" actually looks like in practice depends on a few things:
- Your hosting environment — determines whether native PHP mail works at all
- Your active theme — some themes or page builders modify email template inheritance
- Whether you're using WooCommerce extensions — plugins like subscriptions, bookings, or memberships add their own email triggers with separate settings
- Your customer base — B2B stores often need more detailed invoice-style confirmations than typical retail orders
- Your technical comfort level — template file editing requires basic file management, while plugin-based editors don't
A store running on managed WordPress hosting with a custom email design and Subscriptions plugin active is dealing with a meaningfully different setup than a basic WooCommerce install on shared hosting sending plain-text order confirmations.
Where those pieces land in your specific environment is what determines which path — native settings, SMTP plugin, or template customization — actually solves the problem you're looking at.