New Plugin Uses BuddyPress Email API to Send bbPress Forum Emails

BuddyPress 2.5, released in March, introduced customizable emails via a new BP Email API. This new feature allows community managers to easily edit BuddyPress-generated emails in the admin and make design changes in the customizer.

It didn’t take long for developers to think of bringing this same customizability to bbPress emails. Brandon Allen has just released BP Emails for BBP, a plugin that sends forum and topic subscription emails using the new BP Email API.

Once installed, administrators will find templates for new forum topics and topic replies under the same Emails menu item with the 16 customizable BuddyPress core emails.

Allen noted that the plugin sends emails differently than bbPress, which puts every subscriber email in the BCC field and sends one email. Instead, it sends a separate email to each subscriber, which Allen said may improve deliverability given that some email providers look unfavorably on emails with large BCC fields.

I tested the plugin and found that it works as advertised for customizing and sending bbPress emails. There are no settings to configure. It simply adds the same functionality that users now expect from BuddyPress core emails with all the same customization options.

BP Emails for BBP is available on WordPress.org. It does not work with bbPress alone but requires both bbPress 2.5+ and BuddyPress 2.5+ to be active. With the help of this plugin, a community manager can brand all the email communications generated by the site so that the design and wording is consistent across both plugins.