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How to Send a Confirmation Email with Form Data to the Submitter

21 threads Sep 10, 2025

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When users submit a form on your website, it's often helpful to send them a confirmation email that includes a copy of the information they provided. This serves as a receipt and allows them to verify their submission was correct. This guide explains how to set this up using the Formidable Forms plugin.

Why Send a Confirmation Email?

Sending a confirmation email to the person who filled out your form is a standard best practice. It provides the user with immediate feedback that their submission was successful and gives them a record of the data they entered. This is especially useful for registrations, orders, or contact requests.

How to Set Up an Autoresponder Email

The feature that sends an email to the form submitter is commonly called an "autoresponder." Here is how to configure it:

  1. Edit your form in the WordPress admin dashboard.
  2. Navigate to the form's Settings and then to the Emails or Notifications tab.
  3. Click to add a new email notification.
  4. In the To field, use a smart tag like [email] to dynamically insert the email address the user entered in your form's email field.
  5. Compose the subject and body of your email.
  6. To include a summary of all the submitted form data in the email body, use the [default-message] shortcode.
  7. Configure the "From" fields with a recognizable name and email address from your domain to help ensure deliverability.
  8. Save your settings and test the form.

Understanding Email Security

A common question is whether sending form data via email is secure. Standard confirmation emails are sent using the same methods as any other WordPress email. While the form submission itself is secured by your site's HTTPS protocol, the email itself travels over standard email protocols, which are generally not encrypted end-to-end.

For forms that collect highly sensitive information (e.g., medical details, financial data), it is a best practice to avoid including that sensitive data in confirmation emails. Instead, consider only sending a basic confirmation that the submission was received and store the sensitive details securely in your WordPress database.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

  • Emails Not Received: The most common cause of emails not arriving is a conflict with your WordPress hosting environment or a plugin. Using an SMTP plugin to route your WordPress emails through a dedicated mail service can greatly improve reliability.
  • No Form Data in Email: Ensure the [default-message] shortcode is placed in the message body of the correct email notification configured to send to the submitter.

By following these steps, you can reliably send a confirmation email that includes a copy of the submitted form data to your users.

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