To email an article’s author when a WordPress post goes public, configure a notification with a Post Published trigger and set the recipient to the author’s email address. In the Notification plugin, the recipient field is {post_author_user_email}; {post_title} and {post_permalink} can be used in the message. Confirm whether your chosen tool runs only on first publication or also on later updates, and whether it supports your content type.
Choose the right kind of notification
This workflow sends a transactional message to the person who wrote the content. It is different from a subscriber newsletter and from WordPress discussion alerts for comments or notes. WordPress’s documented discussion settings and developer references focus on those discussion events rather than providing a general author email whenever a post is published.
Option 1: Configure a notification plugin
A dashboard-based notification is the simplest route when you do not want to maintain PHP.
Create the publication trigger
- Install and activate a notification plugin that supports a publication event.
- Create a new notification and select Post Published as the trigger.
- Add an email carrier or email action.
Address the post author
In the Notification plugin listing, the documented recipient value is {post_author_user_email}. This resolves to the email address stored for the user assigned as the post author, rather than a fixed administrator address.
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Build a useful message
Use a clear subject such as Your article is now published: {post_title}. Include the public link with {post_permalink}, along with any editorial note your workflow requires. Save the notification and publish a test article using a non-production account before enabling it for everyone.
Check scope before relying on it
- Verify that the trigger applies to the post type you use. Standard posts and pages may be handled differently from custom post types.
- Check whether the event fires only when a draft first becomes published, or again when an already-published item is updated.
- Confirm that scheduled publishing, revisions, bulk edits and administrator edits behave as you expect.
Option 2: Use a dedicated author-notification plugin
The Publish Post Email Notification listing describes an automatic email to the post author when an administrator publishes and approves the content. This can fit an editorial workflow in which contributors submit drafts and an editor controls release.
The same listing places custom post type support in its Pro version. Check the current plugin page and plan details if your site publishes products, portfolio entries, lessons or another custom type. Also verify whether “approved” and “published” are separate conditions in your workflow; a plugin that waits for administrator approval may not notify on every status transition you use.
Plugin route compared with custom code
| Consideration | Plugin configuration | Custom implementation |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Dashboard settings; no PHP maintenance | Requires a developer and deployment process |
| Recipient and message | Depends on the plugin’s fields and merge tags; Notification documents the author email, title and permalink fields | Can be tailored to site-specific rules and templates |
| Pages and custom post types | Must be confirmed in the plugin’s current feature list; one cited plugin reserves custom post type support for Pro | Can target selected post types if the implementation is written and maintained for them |
| First publication versus updates | Depends on the trigger’s documented behavior and settings | Must be explicitly handled in the publish hook logic |
| Failure diagnosis | May offer logs, debug settings or an SMTP test, depending on the plugin | Requires application logging plus reliable mail transport |
A developer can implement the same workflow with a WordPress publish hook, but the exact hook behavior should be checked against the site’s WordPress version, statuses and content types. Treat a tutorial’s sample code as an implementation starting point, not as proof that it has been tested on your installation.
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Confirm the data first
- Open the author’s WordPress user profile and verify the email address.
- Ensure the post actually has that user assigned as its author.
- Check the notification’s enabled status, trigger, recipient field and content-type scope.
Test the mail path
The PostNotify listing describes SMTP support and an SMTP configuration test, as well as a one-recipient-per-post limit in its free version. Those are listing claims, not a guarantee that messages will arrive from your host. If a correctly configured notification does not appear, run the available SMTP test, inspect plugin or mail logs, and check the recipient’s spam and quarantine folders.
Quick Recap
Separate trigger failures from delivery failures
- No notification record or log entry: investigate the post status transition, approval workflow and content-type support.
- A send attempt is recorded but no message arrives: investigate SMTP credentials, the host’s mail restrictions, sender authentication and recipient filtering.
- Messages arrive on updates unexpectedly: change the trigger logic or plugin setting so only the draft-to-published transition sends an email.
A practical setup checklist
- Decide whether only first publication should notify authors.
- Choose a plugin that supports your post type and editorial approval flow.
- Set the trigger to Post Published (or the plugin’s equivalent).
- Set the recipient to
{post_author_user_email}when using Notification. - Add the title and public permalink fields to the message.
- Test with a real contributor account and a non-production article.
- Verify both the trigger log and actual inbox delivery.
- Document what happens for scheduled posts, revisions, republishing and deleted users.
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