Job php-contact-form-emails-not-arriving · revised 9 October 2026
Make your website's contact or booking form emails arrive again
Repair a custom PHP or Laravel form's sending path using an authenticated mail service, verify test delivery, and preserve and log failed submissions. Inbox placement is not guaranteed.
You might be seeing
- The form shows “Thank you, we'll be in touch” but no email arrives
- Enquiries arrive in spam, or only some of them arrive
- Enquiries stopped after the site moved host or the host changed its mail settings
- Customers phone to ask why nobody answered the form they sent
No passwords, keys, card details or admin invites needed to start.
What usually happened
The form appears to accept an enquiry but its notification does not reach the owner. Possible causes include a form that never saves, a PHP mail handoff that fails, unauthenticated sender headers, a blocked SMTP account or mailbox filtering. We first trace one safe test submission; only a confirmed sending-path fault belongs in this code-change scope.
Who it’s for: Owner of a small business whose enquiries or bookings come through a form on a custom-built website, with nobody maintaining the code.
Usually starts when: Enquiries suddenly stop, a customer says they filled in the form and heard nothing, or the host announces it is restricting outgoing mail from websites.
The result: On a test copy, every agreed form sends through an authenticated mail service with the visitor as reply-to, and a failed send keeps the enquiry. After your site holder deploys it, a test message from each form reaches the agreed mailbox; we record whether it lands in Inbox or Junk.
Check whether this job fits
Six short questions. Your answers stay on this page unless you choose to email them.
Checks you can run yourself
Send a test enquiry and look for it
Fill in your own form with your name and a note such as “test enquiry”, then check the inbox, spam and any quarantine page your email provider has.
Look for: Whether it arrives at all, how long it takes, and, if it's in spam, the sender address it shows. A visitor's address as the sender is the usual cause.
Ask your host one question
Ask your host's support whether outgoing mail from PHP's mail function is limited or blocked on your plan.
Look for: A yes, or a sending limit, confirms the form needs an authenticated mail service.
What you get
- The changed form files, with a list of what changed and why
- Before and after results from test submissions of each form
- Steps for your site holder to upload the change and to undo it
- A note of where failed sends are logged and how to read them
Included
- Up to three forms on one custom PHP, Laravel or CodeIgniter site, after a captured test establishes a sending-path fault
- Changing how each form sends: authenticated SMTP from your mailbox provider, or a transactional email service you choose
- Sending from an address on your own domain, with the visitor's address as reply-to
- Keeping a copy of each enquiry, in the database or a protected file, when sending fails
- Checking that the sending service passes SPF and DKIM for your domain
Not included
- WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or other platforms with their own form plugins
- Rebuilding or redesigning the forms
- Spam filtering of incoming form submissions beyond what the form already has
- Fixing SPF, DKIM or DMARC for your staff mailboxes and other tools: that is a separate job
- Newsletter or bulk email
How we know it’s done
Agreed with you before work starts. Each check produces evidence you keep.
Ten test submissions of each agreed form on the test copy each produce one captured email, with your domain as sender and the test visitor as reply-to
Evidence: Captured messages from the test run, with headers
After your site holder deploys the change, a test enquiry from each form reaches the agreed mailbox without a sending error; we record Inbox or Junk placement and the actual SPF, DKIM and DMARC results
Evidence: Your mailbox screenshot and the test message headers
With the mail service deliberately unreachable on the test copy, a submission is logged and its content kept, and the visitor sees an honest message
Evidence: Log line and the saved enquiry from the test
A submission with line breaks and extra addresses in the name and email fields sends only to the agreed inbox
Evidence: Captured message and the reviewer's note
Sign-off. You sign off after the test-copy checks pass and your site holder deploys the change and confirms a test enquiry from every agreed form reaches the mailbox.
If it fails. If the checks don't pass, you don't pay, and you keep our findings about how the form sends today.
When it fits, and when we stop
It fits when
- The site is custom PHP or a PHP framework such as Laravel or CodeIgniter
- You can get a copy of the site's files, and of the database if the form saves to one
- You have a mailbox on your own domain, or are happy to set up a transactional email account in your own name
- Someone can upload changed files to the live site, or your host will do it
- A test submission is accepted and either a delivery trace or the code shows a PHP mail or unauthenticated transport failure
We stop and tell you if
- The site is WordPress or a site builder: their form plugins have their own mail settings
- The form sends to many recipients or works as a newsletter
- Parts of the code are encoded and can't be changed
- The form collects card numbers or health records directly
- The form itself never accepts the submission, or the mail provider has suspended the account; that is not this sending-code fix
What could go wrong
The change is a small set of form and configuration files listed in the handover. Your site holder keeps the old files and can put them back at once.
Scroll the table sideways to read it all.
| Risk | How we handle it |
|---|---|
| A form that accepts any input can be abused to send spam through your new mail service | We keep the recipient fixed in code, strip line breaks from header fields, and the reviewer tests injection attempts. |
| The sending password ends up in the code or in our notes | It goes in a configuration file outside the public web folder, entered by your site holder; we never receive it by email. |
| Testing sends emails to real customers | On the copy, all outgoing mail is captured; nothing leaves the test workspace until your holder uploads the change. |
| Enquiries submitted while the form is changed are lost | The live change is a file upload that takes seconds, and from then on failed sends are saved rather than dropped. |
A second reviewer checks the changed code for header injection and other input handling, checks that the sending password lives outside the code, and checks the undo steps.
How we deliver
We arrange the work and independent review, then show you the result against the agreed checks. You keep authority over your systems.
- Trace a safe test submission from form acceptance through the outgoing mail log and recipient result; if the fault is elsewhere, stop before changing code
- Change each form to send through the agreed authenticated service, from your domain with the visitor as reply-to
- Add a log and a saved copy of the enquiry for any failed send
- Test each form with made-up data, including a deliberately failed send
- Independent review of the changed code, especially input handling and where the password is kept
- Hand over the files, the results and the upload and undo steps; your site holder applies them live
This is a one-off job, not emergency cover or a subscription. We confirm eligibility, the total price, a start window and a delivery date before you accept. Work starts only after agreed inputs, secure access, any licences and necessary permissions are in place. Hosting, platform and supplier charges are excluded unless the written quote includes them. No charge or booking is created by an enquiry.
Need to keep it working?
If missed enquiries matter, discuss periodic synthetic form submissions and review of failed-delivery alerts.
Ongoing work is separately scoped and quoted: no monitoring, response-time guarantee or automatic subscription is included in this job.
Explore an ongoing engineering lane, or mention the responsibility you need in your enquiry.
What you can check
This is a new service. We have not delivered this job for a client yet.
Other ways to get this done
- If the site is small and the form is its only moving part, a hosted form service that emails you each submission can replace it without touching the site's code beyond one page.
- Some hosts relax their mail limits for a specific sender address if you ask. That can restore sending, but mail claiming to come from visitors will still be filtered.
Questions
Do you need my email password?
No. Your site holder puts the sending password in place on the server. If you'd rather not use your mailbox, a transactional mail account in your own name works too.
Will I get back the enquiries that went missing?
Usually not: mail the server failed to hand off is rarely kept. If the form saved the entry in a database, we show you where it is. We first check that the form actually accepted the test submission.
Does this cost anything every month?
Your existing mailbox may include SMTP sending in its plan. A transactional email provider may charge for usage or require an account in your name; check its current price before you choose it.
Our normal emails go to spam as well. Is that included?
Only the form's sending. If your staff mail and other tools also land in spam, that is the separate SPF, DKIM and DMARC job.
Start with an email
Send us
- The address of the page with the form
- When enquiries last arrived, and whether anything changed around then, such as a host move
- Who provides your email: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, your web host or another provider
- Any error the form shows, or a screenshot of what visitors see after sending
- Whether the form also saves enquiries anywhere, such as an admin page
Later, once you agree
- A copy of the site's files, and the database if the form uses one, through a download link you control
- Sending details for the mail service, entered by you into a configuration file we name, never sent to us in an email
- A company-controlled secure handoff agreed before access: no live passwords, keys, private code or customer records by ordinary email.
You keep the hosting, mailbox and mail-service accounts in your name. AI agents change and test the form code on a copy; a separate reviewer checks it. Your site holder uploads the change and enters the sending password. Synthetic Industry is owned by a person and remains accountable for the agreed work.
Or write to hello@syntheticindustry.ai with “php-contact-form-emails-not-arriving” as the subject.