Besides sending automatically on a trigger, every custom email in Additional Custom Emails & Recipients for WooCommerce can be sent by hand from the WooCommerce order screens. This is how you re-send an email for one order, test how an email looks, or send the same email for a batch of orders at once.
Turn on the placements you want #
Each email decides where its “Send email” action appears. Open the email under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails and find Admin actions (option ID admin_actions) in the Admin Options section. It is a multiselect with four placements:
| Placement | Where it appears | On by default |
|---|---|---|
| Edit order > Order actions | The Order actions dropdown on a single order’s edit screen. | Yes |
| Orders > Bulk actions | The Bulk actions dropdown on the Orders list. | Yes |
| Orders > Preview | The order preview modal opened from the Orders list. | No |
| Orders > Actions column | A one-click icon button in the Orders list Actions column. | No |
Each entry reads “Send email: ” followed by the email’s Admin title, so you can tell several custom emails apart.
Send for a single order #
- Open the order under WooCommerce > Orders.
- In the Order actions box (top right), pick Send email: [your email title].
- Click the update or send button next to the dropdown.
The email is sent immediately, and the plugin adds an order note recording that it was sent, marked “manually.” That note is your confirmation and audit trail.
Send for many orders at once #
- Go to WooCommerce > Orders.
- Tick the orders you want.
- In Bulk actions, choose Send email: [your email title] and click Apply.
The email is sent for every selected order, and an admin notice confirms how many orders were processed. This works on both the classic Orders screen and the High-Performance Order Storage orders table.
One-click send from the Orders list #
Enable Orders > Actions column to add a small icon button to each row. Clicking it sends the email for that order right away, without opening it. Enable Orders > Preview to add the same action inside the order preview modal.
Testing an email #
There is no separate “Send test email” button. To test, use the single-order method above on any real order: pick the email in Order actions and send. The plugin’s own guidance says the same, that you test an email by opening an order’s edit page and choosing “Send email: [title]” in Order actions.
What a manual send does and does not skip #
- Delay is ignored. A manual send goes out immediately even if the email has a Delay set, because you asked for it explicitly.
- Enable/Disable still applies. A disabled email will not send, even manually.
- Order Options still apply. The email’s Require/Exclude conditions (products, amounts, gateways, users, statuses, and so on) are still checked, so a manual send can be blocked if the order does not match. If a manual send seems to do nothing, review the Order Options and the Exclude recipients field.
Give your team one-click emails #
Additional Custom Emails & Recipients for WooCommerce Pro lets you build unlimited custom emails, each sendable from the order screen. Get the plugin to put the emails your staff needs one click away.