WP Emails Stopped Working? – Microsoft Joins Gmail and Yahoo in Boosting Transactional Email Security

What It Means for WordPress & Transactional Emails

If you use WordPress to send email notifications—like contact form alerts, order receipts, or password resets—there’s a major update you need to know:

As of May 2025, Microsoft is now enforcing the same email authentication standards that Gmail and Yahoo began requiring in 2024. If you don’t update your setup, your emails might start going straight to spam—or not be delivered at all as they enter the web’s black hole.

What’s Happening?

Microsoft now requires senders to:

• Use SPF and DKIM to verify the sender.
• Publish a DMARC policy (at least p=none).
• Include one-click unsubscribe links (for bulk/marketing emails).
• Follow list hygiene best practices.

Even low-volume senders (like most WordPress sites) are affected if their emails aren’t authenticated.

What You Can Do

To stay compliant and protect your email deliverability consider using a sending service like Brevo.  Its free for up to 300 emails per day.

Create a free Brevo account and link your site to their sending service. It’s free for up to 300 emails per day plus, they automatically stay compliant for your site. Visit Brevo site by clicking here.

To see a video on how easy they make it to connect your site and add the nessecary server settings click here and scroll down.

Once you have:

1. Add the Brevo SMTP plugin to your site.
2. Setup your Brevo account.
3. Add your domain that creates an API Key to paste in your Brevo SMTP plugin settings and “Save”.
4. Go back to Brevo and select to “Authenticate” your site.
5. Select the Authenticate the domain automatically option.
6. Click Continue. A pop-up window appears.
7. Click Continue. Brevo will automatically detect your domain provider.
8. Enter the credentials of your domain provider’s account. If you’re unsure what your domain provider is, check Brevo’s dedicated article Identify your domain provider.
9. Click Continue. All required DNS records will be added automatically to your domain’s settings.
10. (Optional) If your domain already has a DMARC record, you’ll be asked if you want to replace it with Brevo’s DMARC record. Click Okay, then continue to replace it.

Brevo can automatically setup your server records for you if your site is hosted on any of the providers below: