How to Set Up Email Notifications for Your Koala Forms

A form that quietly collects submissions in the background is easy to forget — and a missed enquiry is a missed customer, a lost application, or an unhappy visitor who thinks you ignored them. Email notifications fix that. The moment someone submits your form, Koala Forms can email you (and optionally the visitor) so nothing slips through the cracks.

In this guide you’ll learn how to set up form email notifications in Koala Forms: alerting the right people, including the submitted data in the email, styling your messages, and — crucially — making sure those emails actually get delivered.

Two kinds of notification

Koala Forms handles notifications on a per-form basis, so every form can behave differently. There are two notifications to think about:

Admin notification — an email sent to you or your team whenever the form is submitted, containing the visitor’s answers. This is the one you’ll almost always want on.
Confirmation to the visitor — an optional thank-you email sent to the person who filled out the form, reassuring them it went through.

Step 1: Open your form’s Notification settings

Open the form in the block editor. In the settings sidebar you’ll find the Form Settings panel, which groups your form’s behavior into a set of modals — General, Notifications, Stages, Post-Submission, and Restrictions.

Click into Notification Settings.

Step 2: Turn on the admin notification

Enable the admin notification toggle. This tells Koala Forms to send an email on every submission. With it on, you can configure:

Recipient email — where the notification is sent. Leave it blank to use your site’s admin email, or enter a specific address such as sales@yourcompany.com. You can route different forms to different teams this way.
From email — the address the notification appears to come from. Using an address on your own domain improves deliverability.
Subject — the email’s subject line, e.g. “New contact form submission from your website.”
Email body — the message content, including the submitted data (see the next step).

Step 3: Include the submitted data with a merge tag

An email that just says “you have a new submission” forces you to log in to see what was actually sent. You want the details right there in your inbox. Koala Forms provides a merge tag for exactly this. Drop this into your email body:

{{REGISTRATION_DATA}}

When the email is sent, that tag is replaced with a neatly formatted table of every field the visitor filled in. A simple, effective admin body looks like:

Hello, you’ve received a new submission. Here are the details:
{{REGISTRATION_DATA}}

Step 4: Choose your email template style

Koala Forms can style your outgoing emails so they look professional rather than plain. Under Koala Forms → Global Settings, the email template option lets you pick the overall look — for example, a clean “classic” style — that applies to your notification emails across all forms. Set it once and every form’s emails match your brand.

Step 5: Send a test submission

Never trust a notification you haven’t tested. Open your live form, submit a real entry, and confirm:

The notification arrives in the recipient’s inbox.
The subject line and “from” address are correct.
The {{REGISTRATION_DATA}} tag was replaced with the actual field values.

If the email doesn’t arrive, check the spam folder first, then read the delivery section below.

Making sure your form emails get delivered

This is the part most people skip — and it’s the most common reason notifications “don’t work.” By default, WordPress sends mail using the server’s basic mail() function, which many hosts either disable or fail to authenticate. The result: emails land in spam or vanish entirely.

The fix is to send email through a proper mail service:

Install an SMTP plugin and connect it to an authenticated mail provider (such as your host’s SMTP, a transactional email service, or your business email account).
Use a “from” address on your own domain, not a free mailbox, so providers don’t flag it.
Add SPF and DKIM records for your domain if your mail service provides them — they dramatically improve inbox placement.

Once SMTP is configured, resend your test submission and confirm delivery.

Troubleshooting notifications

Emails go to spam or never arrive. WordPress’s built-in mail is unreliable. Configure an SMTP plugin with an authenticated provider — this resolves the vast majority of delivery problems.
The data tag shows up literally. Make sure you typed {{REGISTRATION_DATA}} exactly, including both pairs of curly braces.
Notifications go to the wrong person. Check the recipient field in Notification Settings. A blank field falls back to your site’s admin email.
No email at all, even to spam. Confirm the admin notification toggle is on and send a fresh test submission.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get an email when someone submits my WordPress form?
Open the form, go to Form Settings → Notification Settings, enable the admin notification, and set a recipient. Koala Forms will email you on every submission.

Can I send the notification to more than one form differently?
Yes. Notifications are configured per form, so each form can notify a different recipient with its own subject and message.

How do I include the submitted answers in the email?
Add the {{REGISTRATION_DATA}} merge tag to the email body. It’s replaced with a formatted table of the visitor’s answers when the email sends.

Why aren’t my form notification emails arriving?
Almost always a mail delivery issue, not a Koala Forms bug. WordPress’s default mail is unreliable — install an SMTP plugin and authenticate with a real mail provider to fix it.

Can visitors receive a confirmation email?
Yes. In addition to the admin notification, you can send a confirmation to the person who submitted the form, letting them know it was received.

Key takeaways

Form email notifications ensure you never miss a submission — enable the admin notification per form.
Route each form to the right recipient, subject, and message under Notification Settings.
Use the {{REGISTRATION_DATA}} merge tag to include the submitted answers in the email.
If emails don’t arrive, the cause is usually WordPress mail delivery — configure SMTP to fix it.

Email keeps you alerted, but inboxes get messy and messages get deleted. That’s why every submission is also stored safely inside WordPress, where you can search, review, and manage it — which is exactly what we’ll cover next.