fixed : WordPress.com Contact Form refuses to send to my main eMail-address

Posted on 29-01-2014 by MacManus.nl

Question :

I have a WordPress.com-website with a Contact Form on it that is used for people to subscribe to my mailing list. I want to change the eMail-address that each filled-out form is being sent to. I managed to get the online form to send to my secondary eMail-address (or any other one), but not to the one I actually would want : the one that is my main eMail-address.

What is wrong ?

Answer :

As always, the devil is in the details…

WordPress.com has a great option to easily include a Contact Form into a webpage. Such a Contact Form can be used as an actual contact form (so you don’t have to disclose your eMail-address on your website), but it can also be used for making a Feedback Form, a Subscription Form or a Registration Form for instance.

By simply clicking the “Add Contact Form” button while typing your Page or Post, you will be shown a popup window to configure your Contact Form. There you will be shown 2 tab pages. In the “Form Builder”-tab page you can configure the Fields that the visitor should fill out (so, the questions (s)he should answer). In the “Email notifications”-tab, you can give the eMail-address that the form should be sent to, and the subject line to be used.

When that’s done, you will see the ‘Contact Form script’ displayed between square brackets ( i.e. between a “[” and a “]” ) in the Edit Page or Edit Post window of your WordPress.com Dashboard. More info on this can be found here.

So much for the general intro into using Contact Forms in WordPress.com.

Here’s the actual answer to your question :

Normally, the ‘Contact Form script’ will start with something like :

{contact-form to=’myself@provider.com’ subject=’your subject line here’}{contact-field label=…. etc. ; note that in reality the { and } will be displayed as [ and ]

…in which ‘myself@provider.com’ is the eMail-address that the filled-out from will be sent to, and ‘your subject line here’ is the prefab subject line that will be used on each of those eMails.

Now the thing is, that when the contact-form to=’myself@provider.com’ is missing, it is because this eMail-address is exactly the same as the eMail-address that is set as the default eMail-address of your WordPress.com-account. In that case, the filled-out forms will NOT be send out via eMail, they will only be visible in the Feedback (main menu) –> Feedback (sub menu) chapter in your WordPress.com-Dashboard.

Note #1 : if you input your WordPress.com-account’s eMail-address into the “Email notifications”-tab page, it will not stick ; put differently : it will not be included in the ‘Contact Form script’, so no eMail will be send out !

Note #2 : even if you manually edit the ‘Contact Form script’ to include your WordPress.com-account’s eMail-address, no eMail will be send out !

So, if you need the Contact Form to be send to the eMail-address that is also your WordPress.com-account’s eMail-address, the only option to fix this is to change your WordPress.com-account’s eMail-address…

Note #3 : your WordPress.com-account’s eMail-address can be changed in your account settings, which can be found here :

– go to ‘your account name’ (top-right in your Dashboard, next to the looking glass-icon)

– then select ‘your account name’ from the pop-up window, and the “My Account”-page will open

– there, you can change ‘Email Address’ (into an eMail-address that you ar NOT using to send your Contact Forms to)

Note #4 : when changing your WordPress.com-account’s eMail-address, you will get 2 eMails from WordPress.com : the first one will be sent to your ‘old’ eMail-address, asking you to reply immediately if you don’t agree with a change of your eMail-address (so do NOT reply to that one) ; and a second one will be sent shortly after that to your ‘new’ eMail-address to confirm the change of your WordPress.com-account’s eMail-address (yes, you should reply to that one to confirm)

That should fix it 😉

fixed : set IMAP eMail for Hotmail.com, Live.com and Outlook.com in OSX Mavericks Mail.app

Posted on 12-11-2013 by MacManus.nl

Question :

I’ve just upgraded to OSX 10.9 Mavericks, and I’ve always though it was extremely annoying that Microsoft only allowed POP eMail for Hotmail.com for MacOSX, but I kept my Hotmail-account alive for al these years since I actually liked it, even after I switched to Mac…

Recently I heard that Microsoft is finally allowing IMAP access to Hotmail.com eMail, but I can’t figure out how to set it up on my OSX 10.9 Mavericks Mac…

Can you please help ?

Answer :

Yes, you’re correct : IMAP eMail has finally come to Hotmail.com, Live.com and Outlook.com eMail.

Since setting up Hotmail/Live/Outlook-eMail on iOS has been rather simple and painless, we were hoping that the introduction of OSX 10.9 Mavericks would bring this joy to MacOSX also…

note : instructions for setting-up Hotmail/Live/Outlook-eMail on iPhone/iPad can be found here.

…too bad however… for some reason this is still not integrated in OSX 10.9 Mavericks…

Even though OSX 10.9 Mavericks has some new features regarding Mail.app and setting up Internet Accounts, these won’t get you anything more useful than the previous instructions for setting-up Hotmail/Live/Outlook-eMail on MacOSX 10.7 Lion and OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion (which can be found here.).

Important note :

New to OSX 10.9 Mavericks are the iCould-synced Internet Accounts

…but in this case they’re NOT helpful, just adding more confusion :

In OSX Mail.app (version 7.0), in the “Mail” in the top menu, there is a listing named “Accounts” (right below “Preferences”) ; that will open up the “Internet Accounts”-window (which actually is in “System Preferences”), there you can set up a (regular/corporate) “Exchange”-eMail account, but it’s not compatible with Microsoft’s own “Outlook.com Exchange”, so you won’t be able to use it for setting up an IMAP-version of you Hotmail.com/Live.com/Outlook.com-eMail account…

So : let’s hope Apple will integrate easy-setup of Outook-IMAP in one of the future versions of OSX 10.9 Mavericks…

Good Luck !

fixed : change shortname and Home folder name in OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion

Posted on 14-09-2013 by MacManus.nl

Question :

I have imported all data from our old Mac to our new Mac, but the on the new Mac I want to use a different account name than the one that was coupled to the account on the old Mac. To do so, I have to change the Account Name, the Short Name and the Home Folder Name.

Changing the Account Name and the Home Folder Name is easy, but if I only change those two, things get messed up completely…

I can’t find a way to change the Short Name also.

How do I do that ?

Answer :

It’s rather easy to change the account’s naming in OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion, but… exactly as you mentioned : if don’t do it exactly right, you’ll screw up your Mac completely…

Here’s a step-by-step guide to do it :

1- first & foremost : BACKUP ! make sure you start by making a complete backup of your Mac before you start this action ! (the easiest way to make backup is of course a Time Machine backup)

2- login on your Mac using an administrator account different than the account you want to change the name of (if you don’t already have such an second and/or administrator account on your Mac, just create one in the “Users & Groups” section of the System Preferences – you can delete it after the name change is complete)

3- now, go to Apple –> System Preferences –> Show All –> System –> Users & Groups

4- then, in the Users & Groups window that opens, click on the padlock icon (in the bottom left corner)

5- then, select the account you want to change in the list on the left side, and in the Password-tab on the right, at “Full Name:” type the new account name you want to use for this user account

6- then, right-click (or press CTRL while clicking) on the account you want to change in the list on the left side, and a small popup will appear saying “Advanced Options” ; click that

7- in the Advanced Options pull down window, read the WARNING first, then at “Account Name:” type the Short Name you want to use for the renamed account (let’s assume you want to rename to “newshortname” ; this name can’t have spaces in it !) and press OK

8- then, go to your Desktop, and press the SHIFT + CMD + C key-combo (or in the Finder go to Go –> Computers)

9- in the Finder window that opens, go to [Mac Hard Disk] –> Users and then select the (account) folder that has the old name you want to get rid of, and click on it’s name so it will light up ; then replace that name with the new Short Name you want to use (so “newshortname” as we called it before)

Note : it’s hard to believe it’s so easy to change these folder names, as you can mess up your entire Mac in doing so…

10- then go back to Apple –> System Preferences –> Users & Groups, and right-click (CTRL-click) on the account name you’ve just changed a few moments ago, and select “Advanced Options”

11- then, in the “Advanced Options” pulldown menu go to “Home Directory:” and change the “/Users/oldshortname” to “/User/newshortname” and press OK

12- now go to Apple –> Log Out… and login using the renamed account (if you want you can now delete the temporary Administrator-account you had made in System Preferences –> Users & Groups)

That’s it…

Enjoy !

fixed : set IMAP eMail for KPN Planet.nl, Telfort.nl and T-Mobile Online.nl

Posted on 01-09-2013 by MacManus.nl

Question :

I am using a KPN Planet.nl eMail-account on my Mac, my iPad and my iPhone, but when I open (or delete) an eMail on one device, the same eMail will remain unread on my other devices, so I have to redo all actions I do with my eMail on all three devices. That’s a complete waist of time and enormously annoying ! Isn’t there any way to get around this ?

Answer :

Yes there is !

A little background info :

Internet-hosting providers used to give free eMail-hosting with your subscription. In the days that most people only had internet-access from only one computer and one location (home), the POP3-protocol was a good way to handle this and every internet provider therefore offered POP3-eMail services…

…nowadays most people have multiple internet devices and want to access the same eMail-account/mailbox from all those devices. With POP3 that is possible, but it comes with the problem you’re describing…

The best way to get around this problem is to use an IMAP-eMail service (like Gmail) or wait until your local internet-provider also supports IMAP-eMail…

When using an IMAP-eMail service, al your devices will have the same read/unread/deleted-info instantly synced over the internet.

In the Netherlands, internet providers like Wanadoo/Orange/T-Mobile/Online and Tiscali/Telfort have only recently added IMAP-support, but especially KPN Planet Internet (who used to be the no. 1 internet provider in the Netherlands) has always denied IMAP on their eMail-services… until now…

So…

Here’s the settings info you’ll need :

Online.nl (successor to Wanadoo.nl & Orange.nl)

– incoming (IMAP) mailserver : imap.online.nl [port 143 ; needs SSL]

– outgoing (SMTP) mailserver : smtp.online.nl [port 25 ; no SSL & no TLS]

Telfort.nl (including Tiscali.nl)

– incoming (IMAP) mailserver : imap.telfort.nl [port 143 ; possibly no SSL]

– outgoing (SMTP) mailserver : smtp.telfort.nl [port 25 ; no SSL & no TLS]

Planet.nl

– incoming (IMAP) mailserver : imap.kpnmail.nl [port 143 ; seems to need SSL]

– outgoing (SMTP) mailserver : mail.kpnmail.nl [port 25 ; no SSL & no TLS]

And here’s the recommended way to upgrade your mailboxes from POP3 to IMAP :

1- first, upgrade on your computer (Mac/PC) :

– 1A – in your eMail app’s account preferences, set your POP/POP3-account to inactive (delete the check-mark in front of “enable this account”) ; not entirely deleting this account will enable you to get (really) old eMails back if you might unexpectedly need them in the future

– 1B – add a new eMail account, name it something like “your eMail address” + “IMAP”, and use the mailserver-settings mentioned above ; for the login-name and password, you should use exactly the same as previously used for your POP/POP3-account

– 1C – exit the preferences window by pressing the small red button, and confirm that you want to save these changes

2- only then, upgrade the eMail-settings on your iPhone and iPad :

– 2A – go into “Settings”, then “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”, select the small arrow right next to your previous POP/POP3-mail account, and in the next screen click the red button “Delete Account”

– 2B – then restart your iPhone/iPad by pressing the HOME-button and the ON/OFF-button at the same time until the Apple-logo appears on screen

– 2C – after that, go into “Settings”, then “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” again, and add a new eMail account, name it something like “your eMail address” + “IMAP”, and use the mailserver-settings mentioned above ; for the login-name and password, you should use exactly the same as previously used for your POP/POP3-account

Note that for KPN Planet.nl you will probably end up with the wrong (automatically generated) settings for mail severs, password and login-name since KPN Planet.nl has always chosen to use it’s own, highly unconventional settings… so you will have to manually edit those (again) after the account has been created…

…if your iPhone/iPad keeps trying to record the IMAP-seetings as a POP-account, just try again… (starting at 2A)

That’s it !

Enjoy !

😉

fixed : correct login-password not recognized at login

Posted on 07-06-2013 by MacManus.nl

Question :

I just started up my Mac, and in the in log fields I typed my login name and my password…

I’m 100% sure I typed the right password, but I get a message that the password is wrong… and even if I retype my password (which is 100% correct), I still get that same error-message…

Any idea what can be wrong and how I can fix this ?

Answer :

If you’re sure you’ve typed the right password, the problem is not the password, but the login-name… (even if OSX’s error message clearly says it’s the password that is wrong)

What probably went wrong, and is not obvious to the user’s eye, it that you have one (or more) space(s) typed in front of your login-name…

So you’ll just have to entirely erase the login name (hit the Backspace-button a few extra times, just to be sure) and the password, and then type them again.

That’s it !

😉

MacManus.nl

helping hundreds of happy Applers each day

Tag Archives: account

fixed : WordPress.com Contact Form refuses to send to my main eMail-address

fixed : set IMAP eMail for Hotmail.com, Live.com and Outlook.com in OSX Mavericks Mail.app

fixed : change shortname and Home folder name in OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion

fixed : set IMAP eMail for KPN Planet.nl, Telfort.nl and T-Mobile Online.nl

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