The Mail panel

WordPress sends email constantly — new user notifications, password resets, comment moderation. On a development site none of that should reach a real inbox, and with this app none of it can: each site gets its own built-in SMTP catcher, listening only on 127.0.0.1. WordPress's wp_mail() is pointed at it, so every email the site sends lands in the Mail panel instead of leaving your machine.

How it works

The SMTP catcher starts and stops together with the dev server. While the server is running, the panel shows the address it listens on, for example SMTP listening on 127.0.0.1:54321 — the port is assigned by the operating system, so it varies. Before the server has started, the panel says SMTP will start with the dev server.

No configuration is needed on the WordPress side: the app installs a small must-use plugin in the Playground environment that routes wp_mail() through SMTP to the catcher.

Reading emails

Captured emails appear in a list showing the date, the sender, and the subject. Click an email (or press Enter on it) to open it in a full-screen viewer with the From, To, CC, and Date headers and two tabs:

• Rendered — the HTML body as a mail client would show it, or the plain-text body if the email has no HTML part.
• Raw — the raw message source, headers and all. Useful when the bug you are chasing is in how core builds the email itself.

Clear emails deletes all captured emails for the site.

Trying it out

Trigger any email-sending flow on the dev site — the password reset form at /wp-login.php?action=lostpassword is the quickest — and the email appears in the panel. See Running the site for starting the server.