How to Disable WooCommerce Emails in WordPress

What Is the Disable WooCommerce Emails feature?

WooCommerce sends several types of transactional emails by default:

• Order confirmation (customer)
• Processing order (customer)
• Completed order (customer)
• Refunded order (customer)
• Cancelled order (customer)
• Failed order (customer)
• Order on-hold (customer)
• New order (admin)
• Low stock (admin)
• Out of stock (admin)
• Customer note (customer)

The Disable WooCommerce Emails feature suppresses all of these. The on-screen checkout experience (order confirmation page, thank you page) is unchanged.

Why You Need It

Most stores benefit from WooCommerce emails, but some use cases don’t:

• B2B / wholesale: Order confirmations go through a custom sales-team workflow
• Digital products: The download email is sufficient; the WooCommerce order emails are redundant
• Custom email systems: The store uses a third-party email platform (e.g., Klaviyo, Mailchimp) for all customer communications
• Test environments: The store is a staging or development environment where emails would be noise

For most consumer e-commerce stores, leave the emails enabled. For other business models, this feature simplifies the email flow.

How to Disable WooCommerce Emails in WordPress

Step 1: Navigate to Settings

Click into the Classic Monks plugin settings in your WordPress dashboard.

Step 2: Go to the WooCommerce Tab

Click on the WooCommerce menu, then click the Email subtab.

Step 3: Enable Disable WooCommerce Emails

Toggle on Disable WooCommerce Emails.

Step 4: Save Changes

Click Save Changes.

Step 5: Test

Place a test order. The on-screen checkout should still show the order confirmation, but no email should be sent to the customer or admin.

Configuration Options

Option	Description	Default
Disable WooCommerce Emails	Master toggle.	Off

The customer reset password email is controlled by a separate toggle: Allow Reset Password Email.

What Gets Affected

• All WooCommerce transactional emails: suppressed
• The customer’s order confirmation page: still shown on the front-end
• The admin order notifications: suppressed
• The admin new order email: suppressed

What Does NOT Get Affected

• The customer reset password email: controlled by Allow Reset Password Email
• The WordPress core emails (password change, new user, etc.): controlled by separate features in the Email tab > Notifications subtab
• The on-screen order confirmation: still shown
• The customer’s cart and checkout experience: unchanged

Advanced Options (Developers)

This feature registers 2 WordPress hooks in disable-woocommerce-emails.php:

Actions:

• plugins_loaded calls cm_maybe_disable_woocommerce_emails() (Conditionally disables WooCommerce emails)

Filters:

• woocommerce_email_classes calls cm_disable_woocommerce_emails() (Removes selected WooCommerce email classes (priority 90))

// Hooked in disable-woocommerce-emails.php
add_action( 'plugins_loaded', 'cm_maybe_disable_woocommerce_emails' );

The feature modifies WooCommerce behavior by registering or removing hooks. Disabling it reverses those changes.

Troubleshooting

The customer is not receiving order emails

Cause: The toggle is on, and the customer reset password email is controlled by a separate feature.
Fix: Verify the toggle is on. If you want to allow the reset password email, enable the Allow Reset Password Email feature.

The admin is not receiving new order notifications

Cause: The toggle suppresses admin notifications too.
Fix: If you want admin notifications but not customer emails, use the plugin settings to re-enable the admin email class (e.g., WC_Email_New_Order).

The customer is receiving the on-screen confirmation but no email

Cause: This is the expected behavior when the toggle is on.
Fix: This is by design. If you want both the on-screen confirmation and the email, disable the toggle.

I want to disable specific emails but not all

Cause: The toggle is global.
Fix: Configure in the plugin settings to selectively re-enable specific emails. Or use WooCommerce’s built-in email settings (WooCommerce > Settings > Emails) to disable individual email types.