Sometimes you want your own custom email to replace one of WooCommerce’s standard emails, either for everyone or for a specific set of customers. Additional Custom Emails & Recipients for WooCommerce does this with the Stop emails option, which suppresses a chosen WooCommerce email whenever your custom email is sent for that order.
The Stop emails option #
Open your custom email under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails and find Stop emails (option ID alg_wc_ce_stop_emails) in the Advanced Options section. It is a multiselect listing the standard WooCommerce emails. Select the emails that should not be sent for an order when this custom email is sent.
The suppression only takes effect when your custom email actually sends for that order. Concretely, the standard email is stopped when all of these are true:
- Your custom email is enabled.
- The order passes your custom email’s Order Options (Require/Exclude conditions).
- Your custom email is not itself blocked (for example by Exclude recipients).
If your custom email would not send for that order, the standard WooCommerce email goes out as normal. This is what makes selective overrides possible.
Replace a standard email for selected customers #
The most common use is to send a different “Completed order” email to some customers while everyone else keeps the standard one. Pair Stop emails with the Require users condition (this pairing is exactly what the option’s own description suggests):
- Create a custom email with your replacement content.
- Set its Triggers to Order status updated to Completed, so it fires at the same moment as the standard Completed order email.
- In Order Options, set Require users to the customers who should get the replacement (or use Require user roles for a whole group).
- In Advanced Options > Stop emails, select WooCommerce’s Completed order email.
- Set the Recipients to
%customer%so the replacement reaches the customer.
Now, for an order belonging to a selected user, your custom email sends and the standard Completed order email is suppressed. For every other customer, your email does not pass Require users, so the standard Completed order email is sent as usual.
Replace an email for everyone #
To swap a standard email for all orders, do the same but leave the Order Options empty (no Require conditions). Every order that reaches the trigger then gets your custom email, and the selected standard email is stopped across the board.
Timing matters #
For the override to be clean, your custom email should fire on the same event as the standard email you are stopping. Match them up:
| Standard email to replace | Trigger to use on your custom email |
|---|---|
| Completed order | Order status updated to Completed |
| Processing order | Order status updated to Processing |
| New order (admin) | New order, or Order status updated to Processing, depending on your flow |
Avoid setting a Delay on an email you use as an override. The Stop emails suppression is evaluated at the moment the standard email would fire, so a delayed custom email cannot reliably suppress an email that already went out.
Notes #
- Stop emails currently applies to order-based WooCommerce emails; it acts when there is an order in context.
- You can select more than one email to stop from a single custom email.
- If a standard email is still arriving, confirm your custom email genuinely sends for that order (check Enable/Disable, Order Options, and Exclude recipients), because suppression is tied to your email actually being sent.
Take control of your store’s emails #
Additional Custom Emails & Recipients for WooCommerce Pro lets you build unlimited replacement emails, each targeting its own audience. Get the plugin to replace WooCommerce’s default notifications on your terms.