Posting by email makes it easy to publish a new post by sending an email.

To use Post by email you need to enable the Post by Email module in the Jetpack plugin.

Set up Post by Email

Once you’ve activated the Jetpack plugin you set up post by email as follows:

1.  Go to Jetpack > Settings

jetpack settings

2.  Click on the Writing tab.

writing

3.  Scroll down to Post by email module and activate the module.

If the module is not activated yet, it will be grayed out, and a blue “Activate” button will allow you to activate the module.

publish by email

4.  Click on Create Address.

This generates a unique email address which is used to publish posts to your blog. Keep this email address private!

Post by email

Sending Emails

You submit a post by email once you have created the Post by Email address as follows:

Post by email

The subject of the email is used as the title of the post and the body is the post’s contents.  Multiple images are inserted as a gallery.

Post example

Using post by email with students

Teachers can create one email address for their class and give it to all of their students to use to publish to a class blog.

Just ask your students to add their username or some other way of identifying themselves at the beginning or end of the email.

Mail formatting

Your email can be plain text or formatted.  Post by email retains as much formatting as possible but unnecessary HTML tags will be stripped so that your post display nicely.  Email signatures are automatically removed provide they match the standard email block pattern.

If your email system attaches a signature that doesn’t match the standard signature block pattern then adding the shortcode [end] on it’s own line above the signature while block anything after this shortcode from being added to your post.

Inserting images

A single image attachment is displayed inline below your post content while multiple images are automatically displayed in a gallery under your post content.

Post by Email Shortcodes

You can use the following shortcode in your email:

  • [category x,y,z] – for assigning categories to posts.
  • [tags x,y,z] – for assigning tags to posts.
  • [excerpt]some excerpt[/excerpt] – for adding an excerpt
  • [delay +1 hour] – for scheduling a post.
  • [comments off] – for disabling comments on a post
  • [status publish | pending | draft | private] –  to control the post status.  For example, if you use [status pending] the post is submitted as a pending post and isn’t published until approved by an admin user.
  • [slug some-url-name] – for changing the post URL.
  • [end] – everything after this shortcode is ignored.  This is normally used to remove an email signature. It needs to be on its own line with a blank line above it.
  • [nogallery] – disables the auto-gallery and displays all images inline
  • [more] – more tag
  • [publicize off|yahoo|twitter|facebook] – change Publicize options if you have enabled the Publicize module in the JetPack by WordPress plugin.

Shorcodes can be included any where in the body of your email.

Here’s an example of using shortcode in an email:

Email Example

Here is what the post looks like published:

Published post