Subscribers

The list, newest first, with a search box and an Export CSV button.

Tabs above the list show All, Subscribed, Waiting for confirmation and Unsubscribed, each with how many people it holds. Waiting for confirmation is there while anybody is waiting, or while new subscribers are asked to confirm. A search looks within the tab you are on, and Remove brings you back to the same tab, search and page. Export CSV always exports the whole list, whichever tab is showing.

Waiting for confirmation#

While new subscribers are asked to confirm their address (Page → Email Collection), a fourth card, Waiting for confirmation, counts the people who signed up and have not confirmed yet. Each of them is marked Waiting for confirmation in the list, and is in none of the other counts: they are not subscribers yet, and the launch email does not go to them. Once somebody confirms, their row shows Confirmed and the date under their status. People who were on the list before you switched it on show no such date. The Waiting for confirmation tab lists them on their own, newest first. Remove works on a waiting address like any other.

An address nobody confirms is deleted 30 days after it signed up. That is this plugin's own choice, stated in the email; it is not a legal requirement.

If your site could not send a confirmation email, a red note at the top says Confirmation emails are not going out, when the last one failed and what your site's mail system said, with the address left out. Check delivery with Send test email under Launch Email. The note goes once your site sends an email: a confirmation, a test email or the launch email.

The CSV has a confirmed column at the end, with the date and time each person confirmed, and the status column says waiting for somebody who has not.

Telling them you have opened#

Email subscribers when your site goes live is off by default. Switch it on, write the subject and the message, and when the site opens, by your hand or by the clock, everyone who signed up hears from you.

By the clock means the scheduled switch-off, which WordPress's scheduled tasks run at the Switch off at time, or at the first visit after it. On a site nobody visits those tasks do not run, and if the switch-off is run more than a week after its time, the mode is switched off but nobody is emailed: a "we are live" weeks after the site opened would surprise the whole list. The Dashboard then says how many people were not emailed, with Send the launch email, which asks you first. Pressing it, or sending from the Subscribers screen, takes that note away; so does the next time you switch your page off, which asks about the launch email itself. While your page is up the note is not shown.

By hand means Disable on the Dashboard while your page is up, or saving Shop closed for orders under Page → Mode while it is up, which takes the page down too, or saving a Switch off at time that has already passed under Settings while it is up. With people waiting, each asks you first, and the launch email goes out only on your yes (see Shop closed for orders above and Settings below for the two Saves). Switching off a mode that is still waiting for its switch-on time opens nothing, so it emails nobody.

Your answer is to the question you were asked. If the launch email is switched on in another tab after you open the Dashboard, an OK to switching off without emailing still emails nobody. The question names how many people are waiting, and if that number has changed since you opened the Dashboard (somebody signed up), Disable changes nothing and the message asks you to check the Dashboard and press again. The two Saves name the number too. If it has changed since you opened the screen, the save still goes through, because it carries the rest of your changes, and your page comes down, but nobody is emailed: the message says why and how many were not emailed, and Send to … not yet emailed on the Subscribers screen asks again with the right number. Only the number is compared, so if one person left and another signed up, the save emails whoever is waiting. A press of Disable that was never asked emails nobody, for example when the first person signed up after you opened the Dashboard, or when your store was set live in WooCommerce since. The message after it says how many were not emailed. While WooCommerce still hides your store with the launch email on, the email is held for it instead, as below.

With the launch email off and people waiting, Disable asks too, because they signed up to hear when you launch, and afterwards says how many were not emailed. It asks the same while WooCommerce's Site visibility hides your store, and afterwards says both: that the store is still hidden, and how many were not emailed. Press Send to … not yet emailed on the Subscribers screen to tell them later.

WooCommerce's own coming soon mode. WooCommerce has a Site visibility setting of its own, and a new shop starts at Coming soon, which hides the shop, product, cart and checkout pages (or the whole site) from shoppers. While it is on, the Dashboard says so under the status, with a Set Site visibility to Live button for anyone who can manage WooCommerce. Switching this mode off with the launch email on then holds the launch email back rather than telling people a shop is open that they cannot get into. Set Site visibility to Live on the Dashboard asks whether to email them and sends it on your yes, as long as your page is not up. If more people have signed up since you opened the Dashboard, it changes nothing and asks you to check and press again, and if the store was set live somewhere else meanwhile, it changes nothing and says so. Set live in WooCommerce's own settings, which ask nothing, the email is not sent: it stays held, and the Dashboard shows a note saying how many are waiting for it, with Send the launch email, which asks you first. After an OK to switching off or saving without emailing, nothing is held, and a launch with the launch email off, or with nobody waiting, ends a hold left from an earlier one. A Settings save with a switch-off time already gone by asks whether to hold the launch email for the people waiting, while the store is hidden too, and holds it only on your yes. A shop closed for orders puts no page up, so it can go out then as well, and the button asks you first. With your page up again, nothing is held for the store: it goes out when you next switch the page off instead.

Sender name is the name you type. Left empty, it is the sender name your email plugin sets, if it sets one, and otherwise your site title rather than "WordPress". Reply-to address is where replies go — your administration email address unless you give one. An address that is not a valid email address is not kept, and the save says so. The From address itself is left to your site's email setup, because it has to be one your site is allowed to send as. Every message also carries a List-Unsubscribe header, so mail clients such as Gmail show their own unsubscribe button beside it.

Sent in batches of twenty-five from your site's own mail, as plain text, with a one-click unsubscribe link. Each address is stamped the moment it is written to, so nobody is written to twice. A batch that dies halfway (a host that stops long tasks, or a fault in another plugin's mail code) books no more batches, and sending ends there. Send to … not yet emailed on the Subscribers screen carries on from where it stopped. Ten minutes after the batch was last heard from, the plugin stops counting it as going out, so the Dashboard's own offers come back where it makes them: with the shop closed for orders it suggests sending the launch email again, and a launch email it offers after a late switch-off, or holds for your store, is offered again. With a coming soon or maintenance page, the Dashboard does not say who was missed; the Subscribers screen shows them as not yet emailed.

A long list takes a while, twenty-five at a time, about a minute apart. If you put your page back up while it is going out (Enable, a Page screen save or an imported settings file), or switch the launch email off, sending stops: a batch going out at that moment stops before its next email, and no more are booked, so the rest of the list is not told the site is live while it is closed again. A Switch on at time arriving stops it at the next batch. The message after the press, save or import says how many were not emailed. They stay on the list as not yet emailed, for the next time you switch the page off or for Send to … not yet emailed. That button on the Subscribers screen emails the list whatever the launch email switch says, as it always has, and it asks first, naming how many it will email: if more people signed up after you opened the screen, nothing is sent and the message asks you to check the number and press again. Send to everyone again, shown once everybody has been emailed, asks the same way and names them all.

A send that was already going out when you updated from a version before 1.8.3 is treated by what that version could have started. With the launch email switched off, only the Subscribers screen could have started it, so it carries on whatever that switch says, and stops as a send from that screen does. With the launch email switched on, it is taken for the launch email sent when your page came off: it stops if your page is up at the update or goes back up, or if you switch the launch email off, and Send to … not yet emailed carries on from where it stopped.

{name}, {site} and {url} are filled in for you. Send test email puts one in your own inbox first — worth doing, because whether it arrives is your host's business rather than this plugin's.

Subject and Message are sent as you type them, because the email is plain text: an opening code with a % in it (20%DEAL), a link with encoded letters in it and an address in angle brackets all go out as written. A line break in the subject becomes a space. Earlier versions deleted a % together with the two characters after it when both were digits or letters from A to F (%DE in 20%DEAL, leaving 20AL, while 20%OFF was kept), and anything in angle brackets, as they saved either box. What was saved then stays as it is, so check a subject or message you saved before and type any lost part again.

If your site cannot send a message, sending stops there. Nobody is marked Emailed who was not, and the Subscribers screen says what happened and what your site's mail system reported, with the address it was writing to left out. Fix the delivery, check it with Send test email, then press Send to … not yet emailed to carry on from where it stopped.

Mailchimp#

Optional and one way. The address is recorded on your site first and handed to Mailchimp afterwards, in the background, so the visitor is answered at once and an outage, an expired key or a deleted audience never costs anybody their place. Somebody who unsubscribed and signs up again is passed on too.

While new subscribers are asked to confirm their address, they are passed on once they confirm, never before. They go to Mailchimp as subscribed, so Mailchimp does not send them a confirmation email of its own. Code of your own listening for the trcs_subscribed action hears about a sign-up at the same moment: when the person joins the list, which is at sign-up, or at confirmation while confirmation is on.

A hand-off that fails is shown in the Mailchimp panel: how many, when the last one failed and what Mailchimp said, with the person's address left out where Mailchimp repeated it. Export the list and import it into your audience to catch up; the note clears when you save new details or the connection test succeeds. Test the connection reads the audience back, which is the one call that proves the key, the data centre and the audience id are all right.

Once saved, the key is not shown again, not even hidden in the page. The box stays empty and says which data centre the saved key is for. Leave it empty to keep the key, or tick Forget the saved key to remove it. Something typed that is not a Mailchimp key is not saved, the notice says so, and the key you had is kept.

The panel has its own Save changes, and saving it touches nothing else on the screen.

Privacy requests#

The list holds addresses and names people typed in, so WordPress's own tools include it. Tools → Export Personal Data adds the sign-up for that address to the export, including Waiting for confirmation as the status for somebody who has not confirmed, and the date and time somebody confirmed. Tools → Erase Personal Data deletes it, and takes the address out of the last failure the Mailchimp panel, the launch email or a confirmation email reported, if it is there. If Mailchimp is connected, the erasure report reminds you to delete the address there as well, because this plugin cannot delete from somebody else's service. Settings → Privacy offers a short paragraph about the list for your privacy policy, including a sentence saying that, if you ask people to confirm their address, the date and time they confirmed is stored as well.