Control how form emails are delivered and how they look. Tiger Forms sends branded, responsive HTML notifications, optionally routes them through SMTP with provider presets, and gives you honest test sends that report the real server error instead of failing silently.
Where: per-form emails live in the Form Builder under Settings → Notifications. Sender identity and SMTP transport live under Tiger Forms → Settings → Mail.
Notifications
Each form can send two kinds of email on submission: an admin notification to the site owner, and one or more autoresponders (user confirmations) back to the person who submitted. Both render inside a branded, responsive shell built with table-based layout and inline styles — the one combination Outlook, Gmail and Apple Mail all render reliably — including a zebra-striped table of the submitted data.
For each notification you set the recipients, subject and body, using merge tags to inject submission data:
- {field.id} — the value of a specific field.
- {all_fields} — the full submitted-data table (body only; it is stripped from subject lines).
- {site_name} and other context tags such as the form name and date.
Submitted values are escaped before they enter the HTML email, so a malicious submission cannot inject scripts into the admin’s inbox. You can attach uploaded files, and gate a notification with conditional logic so it only sends when it should.
Transport (SMTP)
Out of the box, mail flows through your server’s native PHP mailer with zero configuration. For more reliable delivery, enable SMTP and choose a provider preset, which prefills the host, port and encryption:
- Gmail / Google Workspace — smtp.gmail.com, port 587 (use an App Password).
- SendGrid — username is the literal word apikey.
- Mailgun, Postmark, Amazon SES (region-specific host), Brevo (Sendinblue), Outlook / Microsoft 365, or Custom SMTP.
The SMTP password is encrypted at rest, and Send test reports the exact server error — authentication, port or sender — if delivery fails.
Sender identity and deliverability
Under Settings → Mail you set the From name, From address and an optional Reply-To. Using a real address on your own domain dramatically improves deliverability — the WordPress default (wordpress@yourdomain) often lands in spam. Tiger Forms will not let the From address impersonate a public mailbox (gmail.com, outlook.com, yahoo.com and similar) because those domains publish strict DMARC policies your server cannot satisfy; in that case it keeps a domain-aligned sender and routes replies through Reply-To instead.
Before you rely on it
Every notification event has a Preview so you can see the rendered email, and a Send test to deliver a real copy to yourself. Even if an email fails to send, the submission is always stored in WordPress and can be resent later from the submission view.
Troubleshooting
Emails aren’t arriving at all.
Switch to SMTP, pick the preset for your provider, and use Send test. The returned error names the exact cause — bad credentials, blocked port or a rejected sender.
The autoresponder to the visitor isn’t sending.
Check the recipient merge tag points at the form’s email field (e.g. {field.email}) and that any conditional gate on the notification is satisfied.
Mail lands in spam.
Set the From address to a real mailbox on your site’s domain and configure SPF/DKIM for that domain; avoid sending “from” a Gmail or Outlook address.