The flexible mailing list solution for WordPress
WP Mailster allows you to easily import/export user data.
You can find the CSV import and export functionality in WP Mailster’s dashboard:
There is a section called Tools which links out to the CSV import and export:
The CSV import dialog looks like that (make sure to complete both steps – below is only step 1 of 2):
The CSV export dialog:
This shortcode [mst_subscribe] can be put in any page or post to show a form where the user can subscribe to your mailing list(s).
Without any customization, it looks like this:
You can customize the appearance and functionality of the subscribe shortcode with parameters.
Here is an example:
[mst_subscribe id="1" hideList buttonTxt="Join list" requireTerms="yes" termsLabel="Read and understood the terms of services" termsLinkUrl="https://example.com" ]
This changes the form like so:
In the above example the following parameters are used:
You can find a full documentation of the parameters at the end of this article.
This shortcode [mst_unsubscribe] can be put in any page or post to show a form where the user can unsubscribe from your mailing list(s).
Without any customization, it looks something like that:
You can customize the appearance and functionality of the unsubscribe shortcode with parameters.
Here is an example:
[mst_unsubscribe id="1" hideList ]
This changes the form like so:
In the above example the following parameters are used:
You can find a full documentation of the parameters at the end of this article.
The following parameters work for both subscribe (mst_subscribe) and unsubscribe (mst_unsubscribe) shortcodes.
| Parameter | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| add2Group | Automatically add users to the WP Mailster user group provided, when they subscribe. Provide the group’s ID. See also removeFromGroup. | [mst_subscribe id=”1″ add2Group=”2″ ] |
| buttonTxt | Text on the submit button | [mst_subscribe buttonTxt=”Crazy Button” ] |
| captcha (*) | Use a captcha to secure your form against spammers and bots | [mst_subscribe captcha=”recaptcha” ] |
| css | CSS Prefix of all used CSS classes | [mst_subscribe css=”my_css_prefix_” ] |
| emailLabel | Label of the email field | [mst_subscribe emailLabel=”Your email address” ] |
| headerTxt | Headline of the form | [mst_subscribe headerTxt=”Our conversations – Join here!” ] |
| hideList | Hide the mailing list name, either use without a value or yes as the value (hideList=”yes”) | [mst_subscribe hideList ]
|
| hideName | Don’t require a subscriber name, either use without a value or yes as the value (hideName=”yes”) | [mst_subscribe hideName ] |
| id | ID of the mailing list | [mst_subscribe id=”1″] |
| listLabel | Label of the mailing list name | [mst_subscribe listLabel=”Newsletter” ] |
| nameLabel | Label of the user name field | [mst_subscribe nameLabel=”Your first name” ] |
| smartHide | Hide subsribe form when already subscribed, hide unsubscribe form when not yet subscribed | [mst_subscribe smartHide=”yes” ] |
| submitTxt | Text to display after successful (un)subscription | [mst_subscribe submitTxt=”Thank you for subscribing!” ] |
| removeFromGroup | Automatically removes users from the WP Mailster user group provided, when they unsubscribe. Provide the group’s ID. See also add2Group. | [mst_unsubscribe id=”1″ removeFromGroup=”2″ ] |
| requireTerms | Require terms of service approval. Adds a checkbox and a text the user has to accept to (by clicking the checkbox) in order to subscribe. See also the following parameter termsLabel, termsLinkLabel and termsLinkUrl. | [mst_subscribe requireTerms=”yes” ] |
| termsLabel | Label of the terms of service approval request | [mst_subscribe requireTerms=”yes” termsLabel=”Yes, I have read and accept the terms of service” ] |
| termsLinkLabel | Label of the link pointing to the terms of service | [mst_subscribe requireTerms=”yes” termsLabel=”Yes, I have read and accept the terms of service” termsLinkLabel=”(Our Policy)” ] |
| termsLinkUrl | URL of the link pointing to the terms of service | [mst_subscribe requireTerms=”yes” termsLabel=”Yes, I have read and accept the terms of service” termsLinkLabel=”(Our Policy)” termsLinkUrl=”https://example.com/privacy” ]  |
(*) Some features are only included in our paid editions
If you have never heard of DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) then you are not alone.
Normally this is something that only email providers have to deal with.
This changed in 2014 when several large email providers (most notable: AOL and Yahoo) made a policy change at their email servers. This was done in order to fight SPAM mails.
Unfortunately this had a negative side effect on us mailing list operators.
Not only WP Mailster, but every mailing list software is affected.
A simplified explanation of the DMARC policy change is given below. If you are interested in the bits and pieces we recommend to read this email from the IETF mailing list or Yahoo’s reasons given in an article.
The issue is about where (from which email provider) an email is coming from, not to which email provider it will be sent to by WP Mailster.
Yahoo/AOL/others are essentially instructing any receiving domain (= the mail providers of your mailing list recipients) to reject mail that purports to originate from Yahoo/AOL/… domain, but that comes from someone else. They recognize this when the email structure gets altered (e.g. the sender address or the subject gets changed).
However that is exactly what mailing lists are there for: it takes an email coming from one email provider, processes it (where various modifications are done, e.g. footers are added) and forwards it to all mailing list members.
Hence mailing list emails are rejected which produces a bounce.
The way we deal with DMARC is definitely a workaround, however it is the best we can do for now.
Beginning with WP Mailster version 1.7, the following settings were introduced for the general settings:
With this functionality WP Mailster will look at where the emails sent to the list are coming from and decides between “normal” email providers and the “DMARC relevant” ones. Nothing will change for the first group.
For the second group, WP Mailster will take ownership of the emails. That means it will replace the FROM email address (e.g. john.doe@yahoo.com) with the mailing list address (discussion@example.com).
By default this is done for AOL and Yahoo email addresses, but there is a setting where more email providers can be added if needed (see image above).
The shortcode [mst_profile] shows digest and subscription/unsubscription options to logged-in users.
Example
The shortcode [mst_emails] shortcode displays all past emails in a chronological way.
| Parameter | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| lid | Used to select a mailing list by it’s ID (“lid” is short for “list ID”) so that you only the show the past emails of a certain mailing list | [mst_emails lid=1] |
| order | Determines the chronological order of the emails displayed. Possible values are oldfirst and newfirst | [mst_emails order=oldfirst] |
Example
The shortcode [mst_mailing_lists] displays all mailing lists while adhering to the lists’ access settings.
From this overview, the user can view each list’s emails. Furthermore the subscription settings can be changed.
Example
You can find the general settings in WP Mailster’s submenu at the last entry.
It features all settings that apply on a global level, i.e. settings that apply for all mailing lists and control how WP Mailster behaves in general.
Note: the list below features all settings – some may not be available in your product edition of WP Mailster.
This section only shows for our paid product editions.
The registration plugin is only available in the paid product editions. It enables you to have new, freshly registered users automatically added to your mailing list(s) and group(s).
The Captcha protection is only available in the paid product editions. The motivation is to prevent spam-bots from signing up through the subscribe forms.
We have integrated reCAPTCHA V2 for this purpose. In order to use it, you need to register your site at https://www.google.com/recaptcha/admin and retrieve your two keys from there.
| Regular Placeholder | Meaning of Text Variable / Placeholder | Alternative Text Variable / Placeholder |
|---|---|---|
| {email} | Sender email address | mailster_var_email |
| {name} | Sender name | mailster_var_name |
| {description} | Sender description | mailster_var_description |
| {date} | Sending date/time | mailster_var_date |
| {list} | Mailing list name | mailster_var_list |
| {post_email} | Mailing list email address | mailster_var_post_email |
| {admin_email} | Mailing list administrator email address | mailster_var_admin_email |
| {site} | Site Name | mailster_var_site |
| {unsubscribe} | Unsubscribe URL | mailster_var_unsusbscribe |
| {recip_email} | Recipient email address* | mailster_var_recip_email |
| {recip_name} | Recipient name* | mailster_var_recip_name |
* recipient based information is only available when the mailing lists are sending in the TO-sending-mode (i.e. one email per recipient). The recipient placeholders are not working in a BCC-sending-mode setting (where multiple recipients receive the same “physical email”).
Send Throttling is only available in the paid product editions.
Many email providers enforce certain restrictions like the maximum count of emails per day/hour/minte that you are allowed to send out.
In order to avoid being temporarily blocked from sending, WP Mailster can auto-throttle the outgoing emails to not hit the given limits.
The following timing related settings have a big impact on how WP Mailster performs. Please make sure to understand the setting(s) before making changes.
Our support team may ask you to provide a debug log file.
The logging functionality is intended to support the root cause analysis for issues or bugs.
wp-content/plugins/wp-mailster/log) can be written to, i.e. the directory permissions allow it. When this setting is activated, WP Mailster will write to the log directory even though the permissions do not seem to allow it. This may lead to fatal errors.Sometimes it may be required to update/upgrade the plugin manually (i.e. not through the auto-updater built into WordPress). Then you obviously want to keep your data (like mailing lists, emails, users, …). This why you have the option to keep this data stored in the database during the uninstallation of WP Mailster.
Installing the WP Mailster Free edition is just like any other WordPress plugin.
Navigate to your WordPress “Plugins” page, inside of your WordPress admin area, and follow these instructions:
Now head on over to WP Mailster and start setting up your first mailing list!
If you have already installed a version of WP Mailster, please go to Upgrading to a Premium Version below.
This section describes how to install a premium version of WP Mailster when you don’t have an existing WP Mailster installation, yet.
After purchasing a premium version, go to your account’s download section and download the plugin ZIP file.
Navigate to your WordPress “Plugins” page, inside of your WordPress admin area, and follow these instructions:
This section describes how to upgrade WP Mailster Free to a premium version like Club / Society / Enterprise.
After purchasing a premium version, go to your account’s download section and download the plugin ZIP file.
Also, go to your account’s “My Licenses” section and get the license key of your purchase. You can also find this in the order confirmation email.
Then, go your existing WP Mailster installation, inside of your WordPress admin area, and follow these instructions:
This section describes how to upgrade WP Mailster Club or WP Mailster Society to a higher tier premium version like WP Mailster Enterprise.
After you have purchased a premium version, please go to your account’s “My Licenses” section and get the license key of your purchase.
Then, go your existing WP Mailster installation, inside of your WordPress admin area, and follow these instructions:
The send errors are messages your email server is giving back to WP Mailster basically saying “I will not forward this message”. There are different reasons that emails get rejected from being sent.
An example is that too many emails were sent (per hour / day) so that the email quota of your hoster has been exceeded. Another example is that the hoster does not except emails with a certain content.
WP Mailster retries to send the email several times. If the send errors occur again, it will eventually stop sending.
The way this shows is the status in the email archive: a send error is indicated in the respective column:
In the above example you see that there is no check in the “Sent” column. That means the send error made WP Mailster stop sending this particular email. The remaining recipients (email instances) will be kept in the email queue.
You can try to continue the send process (in the hope that no new send error occur). To do so, open up the email in the email archive and click the button “Reset send errors, continue sending“.
Alternatively, you can skip the remaining recipients and remove them from the queue via the button “Remove remaining queue entries“.
You can dig deeper by opening the email in the email archive and open the “Send report” tab. Scroll down and see if you can locate the server error.
If that is not showing or only a generic message is recorded, you can enable the debug logging mode and try to reproduce the problem with the extended logging enabled. That usually results in more information being available in the send report.
A 500 error is an internal server error. It usually means that there’s an error in the software running on the server or misconfiguration of the server.
The message “internal server error” is very generic and thus does not indicate which exact problem occurred. There are often situations where you only see a “white screen of death” that does not give you any hint what is going wrong.
Depending on your webhoster there are different options available.
Many hosters provide the option to access PHP’s error log through their web interface (e.g. cPanel). Look for entries like “Fatal Error”.
By default WordPress suppresses all errors and warnings. We can tell WordPress to show the problem by editing the wp-config.php file.
Note: this means changing PHP code. Be very careful when doing so as you might introduce errors here.
Set the WP_DEBUG value on like this:
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
That should print the error on the screen. More likely, it will also show non-critical notices and warnings. Since it may reveal a lot of interna about your site it is not always good to show the errors on a public live site.
But you can do something about that by setting two further configuration settings to:
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false ); define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
This will prevent the errors being shown on the screen and will tell WordPress to write the error to a log file in your content directory.
In case WP Mailster is the plugin making trouble: don’t worry, there is a way to login to the site by telling the WP Mailster plugin to stop it’s execution.
Create a text file called “no_mst_plg_exec.txt” or “no_mst_plg_exec” and upload it via FTP to the WordPress uploads directory (a subfolder of the WordPress content directory). It is not important what is in the file (it can be empty), but the filename has to be exactly one of the both mentioned variants.
After creating the file you should be able to login to access your site’s backend, again.
Then disable all your mailing lists.
If you already know that this problem is due to a very large email sitting in the inbox (PHP out of memory error): directly navigate to your mailing list’s settings, in the “Tools” section and use the link to delete the first email from the inbox. After fixing the error do not forget to reactivate the mail plugin.
If the error is caused by something else do reach out to our support.
If you cannot access the site via FTP you need to go directly into the database (e.g. using phpMyAdmin) and deactivate the mailing lists there.
This can be done by opening the [prefix]_mailster_lists table. For all entries set the value of the “active” field from 1 to 0.
Our support might require you to send the log file of WP Mailster. Usually Mailster only logs basic/sparse information. For troubleshooting needs we therefore require more information. This is what we call we Debug Log File.
This is how this information can be generated:
Please note that the “Maximum (Debug)” logging level produces a lot of information, therefore the log file gets big fairly quickly. Thus it is recommended to immediately switch it back to the “Normal” logging mode when you have followed the steps above.
When the troubleshooting process is completed you can simply delete the log file.