Getting Started with FormWatch

Before you start

• WordPress 5.9 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer.
• An administrator login. FormWatch is only visible to users who can manage site options.
• No account, license key or API key is needed.

Install the plugin

1. Download the plugin file from the FormWatch page. Keep it as a zip file; do not unzip it.
2. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
3. Choose the zip file and click Install Now, then Activate Plugin.

To update later, upload the newer zip the same way and choose Replace current with uploaded. Your settings and history are kept.

Open the dashboard

Click FormWatch in the left admin menu. On a new install the status says No data yet and the numbers show 0. That is normal: FormWatch only reports what it has seen, and it has not seen anything yet.

Run the mail-path test

1. In the box Is my mail path working?, check the email address. It starts with your site’s admin address.
2. Click Run mail-path test.
3. A green notice appears, and a row marked Test shows in the flight recorder. Check the inbox for a message titled Gaemster FormWatch test.

The test confirms that WordPress handed the message to your mailer. It does not prove the message reached an inbox, so always look for the email. If it does not arrive, see Troubleshooting.

Set up failure alerts

1. Under Failure alerts and data, leave Email me when a mail or form failure is recorded ticked.
2. Enter up to three email addresses, separated by commas. If you leave the box empty, alerts go to your site’s admin address.
3. Choose how long to keep events: 14, 30 or 90 days.
4. Click Save settings.

You get at most one alert email per hour. Alerts travel through your site’s own WordPress mail, so they cannot reach you if mail is completely down. FormWatch also shows a red notice on your WordPress admin screens for that case. The Mail health guide has the details.

Check that your forms are watched

1. Look at Form plugins detected under Health check. It lists the supported form plugins that are active on your site.
2. Open a page on your site that has a form, fill it in with test text and submit it.
3. Go back to FormWatch. A new row marked Form and OK appears with the form’s name, and Form submissions, 7 days goes up by one.

An OK on a form row means the submission was received. Only Contact Form 7 also reports when a form’s own email fails. See the table in Mail health for what is covered.

Next steps

• Learn what the status and numbers mean in Mail health.
• Learn to read the event log in Flight recorder.
• Read exactly what is stored in Privacy and data.