Email Preview for WooCommerce — preview any store email on a real order and send a test copy

Email Preview for WooCommerce is a plugin that shows any store email on a real order before a customer sees it. Pick an email and an order — and you see it exactly the way WooCommerce builds it for that order: the real products, prices, discounts, addresses, notes and refunds, the subject and heading with their placeholders filled in, the recipient, Cc, Bcc, From and Reply-to.

Without a plugin there is only one way to check an email — place a test order and wait for the mail, or change the status of a real order and hope the customer does not get anything extra. Email Preview sends nothing while you look: the preview does not change the order — it adds no notes, sets no “email already sent” flag and does not write to the customer. When you need to check delivery itself, a test copy goes only to the addresses you typed.

What the customer sees

Nothing — and that is the point. The plugin works only in the admin: no script appears on the storefront, and the customer receives exactly the same emails as before. The difference is that now you see those emails in advance: what “Processing order” looks like with a coupon, what “Partially refunded” says, whether the subject of a custom-status email is empty, whether the product table reads well on a phone.

Before the preview, the plugin shows the email’s subject, who it goes to, the Cc and Bcc from the email settings, From and Reply-to. If the email is switched off in WooCommerce → Settings → Emails, you get a warning: customers do not receive it. If the order has no e-mail, the panel says plainly that WooCommerce will skip this email.

What the admin gets

The plugin adds WooCommerce → “Email Preview” with the tabs “Preview”, “Email log” (Pro) and “Settings”. The first visit shows the latest order and the email its customer got for the current status straight away — no setup at all.

• Any email. The list holds every order email registered in WooCommerce: the 13 emails of WooCommerce 11.1 itself, emails of custom order statuses and emails added by other plugins or the theme — as a separate group.
• Any order. The latest 25 orders in the list, or any order by number in “or order ID”. For a new store with no orders — the WooCommerce “Sample order” with made-up data.
• HTML or plain text. “As configured”, HTML or the plain-text version — even when the store sends HTML.
• Desktop or phone. The “Phone (375 px)” button narrows the email to smartphone width, “Open in a new tab” shows it as a page of its own.

On the right is the “Send a test copy” form: up to 5 addresses separated by commas. Only they get the copy, with [Test] in the subject (the prefix is changed in the settings); the Cc and Bcc from the email settings are not added, the customer receives nothing, and no note appears in the order. The “Include attachments” box asks invoice plugins for their PDFs — it is off by default, because some invoice plugins create a real invoice with a number at that moment (PDF Invoices & Packing Slips does — we checked).

On the order screen itself an “Email preview” box appears: its button opens the email for the current status, and “Other emails” — any other email of this order. The box works with both HPOS and classic order storage.

The “Settings” tab holds the default address for test copies (empty = your account e-mail), the test copy subject prefix, “Delete all plugin data when the plugin is deleted”, and for Pro — the licence, the log and staging mode. The plugin’s interface is translated into Ukrainian and Russian; the email in the preview is in the site language, the way WooCommerce sends it.

Pro: log, languages and staging mode

Email log. Pro records every WooCommerce email the store sends: when, which email, order, recipient, subject and status. If the mail did not go out, the row is marked “Failed” together with the error text — for example, “SMTP Error: Could not connect to SMTP host”. Filters by order number, email type and status. Every row can be previewed or sent again. The log is kept for 30 days (configurable).

“Resend” is the real email, not a test copy: WooCommerce sends it, so the copies from the settings get it too, and WooCommerce 10.9+ writes its own “email sent” note to the order. That is intended — it is a repeat of the real email.

Any language. Pro shows the email and sends a test copy in any language installed on the site — for example, a Ukrainian email with an English admin. The plugin does not pick up the order language from WPML or Polylang automatically — you choose it by hand.

Every email of an order in one click. The “Send every email of this order” button sends one test copy of each order email (switched-off ones included) to the addresses you typed — a full check in one inbox. In the test that was 13 copies and not a single note in the order.

Staging mode. For a copy of a live store or a test run of the checkout: every WooCommerce email goes to one address, with the original recipient in the subject. While the mode is on, a warning sits on every admin screen so you do not forget to switch it off. The mode redirects only WooCommerce emails — WordPress emails and those of other plugins go out as usual.

How it works — step by step

1. You pick an email and an order (or the sample) on the “Preview” tab or in the box on the order screen.
2. The plugin takes the WooCommerce email object itself and prepares it the way WooCommerce does before sending: the order, the recipient, the values for subjects and headings, the customer note, the refund data.
3. The email’s own send routine is not called — in WooCommerce that is what sets the “already sent” flag and writes notes. So the order stays unchanged.
4. The email is built with the same WooCommerce methods as a real send: subject, content (including the block email editor), inline styles and the email content filters.
5. You see the result in an isolated frame without scripts — at desktop or phone width — with the subject and all recipients next to it.
6. A test copy goes through wp_mail() only to the addresses you typed: Cc and Bcc are stripped, the subject gets the [Test] prefix.

How much it costs

Pro is 990 UAH, a one-year licence. A year of updates, technical support and all Pro features. You can take a longer term right away — the longer, the cheaper per year:

• 1 year — 990 UAH
• 2 years — 1,880 UAH (−5%, 940 UAH a year)
• 3 years — 2,610 UAH (−12%, 870 UAH a year)
• 4 years — 3,250 UAH (−18%, 810 UAH a year)
• 5 years — 3,710 UAH (−25%, 740 UAH a year)

No automatic charges: renewal is manual, reminders come by e-mail. A purchased licence keeps the Pro features for good — when the term ends, the shop only stops getting new versions and support. One key — one domain.

Trial first, payment later. The 7-day Pro trial is started with the “Try Pro for 7 days” button in the plugin settings, the key comes by e-mail, no card is needed, and the trial never starts by itself. After the trial only the Pro features switch off; preview and test copies keep working.

Under the hood

• No trigger(). The email’s own WooCommerce send method is not called: in core it sets the “new order email sent” flag, and since WooCommerce 10.9 every send writes a note to the order. A clone of the email is prepared by hand and rendered with public WooCommerce methods.
• Safe preview. The email is shown in a sandboxed frame with no permission to run scripts; the separate tab is served with CSP script-src 'none'. The page is available only to users who can manage WooCommerce.
• Third-party emails. The catcode_emp_prepare_email hook lets developers fill the fields their email fills only in its own send.
• The sample order uses WooCommerce’s built-in preview class. If WooCommerce ever changes it, the sample will show an error, while real orders keep working.
• The Pro log is a separate table cleaned up by cron.
• Deletion with “Delete all plugin data” ticked removes the table, the settings and the cron. With WP-CLI, data is removed by wp plugin uninstall, not by wp plugin delete.

How to install

1. Download the catcode-email-preview-for-woocommerce-1.0.0.zip archive with the button at the top of the page: Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin → Install → Activate. Pro is switched on in the same plugin with a key or a trial.
2. Open WooCommerce → “Email Preview” — you see the latest order and its email right away.
3. Pick another email or order and press “Preview”. To check delivery, enter your address and press “Send test copy”.
4. For Pro: paste the licence key from the e-mail after payment, or press “Try Pro for 7 days” in the “Pro licence” section of the “Settings” tab.