Email Address Encoder
A lightweight plugin that protects email addresses from email-harvesting robots, by encoding them into decimal and hexadecimal entities.
Solid choice
Email Address Encoder is a solid plugin choice in 2026, with a few things worth checking first. It runs on 100K+ sites, is rated 4.2/5 and was last updated 6 months ago, and scores 77/100 on our health check.
- Proven at scale on 100K+ active sites
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Email Address Encoder stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| block | >100 |
| crawler | #10 |
| encryption | #5 |
| protection | #56 |
| spam | #70 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 from 160 reviews
About Email Address Encoder
From the official readme · v1.0.25Description
A lightweight plugin that protects plain email addresses and mailto links from email-harvesting robots, by encoding them into decimal and hexadecimal entities. Has an effect on the posts, pages, comments, excerpts, text widgets and other filtered content. Works without JavaScript — just simple spam protection.
To see whether all your email addresses are properly protected, use the free page scanner tool.
Other content (like phone numbers) can be protected using [encode] shortcode:
[encode]+1 (555) 123-4567[/encode]
[encode link="tel:+15551234567"]+1 (555) 123-4567[/encode]
Premium Features
- Full-page protection that catches all email addresses
- Hardened protection using JavaScript and CSS techniques
- Improved phone number protection
- Built-in plugin support for ACF, Jetpack, WooCommerce and many others
Check out the Premium version of Email Address Encoder.
Installation
For detailed installation instructions, please read the standard installation procedure for WordPress plugins.
- Upload the
/email-address-encoder/directory and its contents to/wp-content/plugins/. - Login to your WordPress installation and activate the plugin through the Plugins menu.
- Use the “Page Scanner” under Settings -> Email Encoder to test if your email addresses are protected.
Frequently asked questions
What does this plugin do?
This plugin searches for email addresses using WordPress filters like the_content, widget_text and others. Found email addresses are encoded using decimal and hexadecimal HTML entities, which obfuscates the email addresses to protect it from being read by most email-harvesting robots. Alternatively, you can use the [encode] shortcode: [encode]+1 (555) 123-4567[/encode]
How can I make sure the plugin works?
You can use the “Page Scanner” found under Settings -> Email Encoder to see whether all your email addresses are protected. Alternatively, you can manually look at the “page source” of your site. Please note: Chrome’s Developer Tools, Safari’s Web Inspector and others automatically decode decimal and hexadecimal entities. You need to look at the “plain HTML source code”.
How can I filter other parts of my site?
This guide will help you encode all email addresses that aren’t caught.
Changelog
This release adds the ability to get notified when your site contains unprotected email addresses.
1.0.25
- Fixed potential XSS vulnerability in
EAE_REGEXP
1.0.24
- Added
classattribute to[encode]shortcode - Prevent CSRF to flush page caches
1.0.23
- Fixed potential XSS vulnerability when using
linkshortcode attribute
1.0.22
- Added
linkattribute to[encode]shortcode
1.0.21
- Changed page slug to avoid issues with the
encodekeyword - Only search for unprotected emails on public pages
- Show warning when page couldn’t be fetched
1.0.20
- Encode emails in navigation menus
Screenshots
![[Premium] Hardened protection: A preview of JavaScript and CSS based techniques](https://ps.w.org/email-address-encoder/assets/screenshot-3.png?rev=1981695)
![[Premium] Phone number protection using polymorphous ROT47/CSS](https://ps.w.org/email-address-encoder/assets/screenshot-4.png?rev=2066777)
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Email Address Encoder alternatives
All block plugins →
FAQ
Email Address Encoder: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 27, 2026
Is Email Address Encoder free?
Yes. Email Address Encoder is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory. The developer also sells premium add-ons or a Pro version with extra features.
Is Email Address Encoder safe to use in 2026?
Email Address Encoder is a solid plugin choice in 2026, with a few things worth checking first. It runs on 100K+ sites, is rated 4.2/5 and was last updated 6 months ago, and scores 77/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Email Address Encoder?
Email Address Encoder is active on 100K+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 1,672,113 times since it launched in November 2011. It was downloaded 7,402 times in the last 30 days.
Does Email Address Encoder work with WordPress 7.1?
Email Address Encoder is officially tested up to WordPress 7.0.6, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
What PHP version does Email Address Encoder need?
Email Address Encoder requires PHP 5.3 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Email Address Encoder last updated?
The latest version, 1.0.25, was released on April 12, 2026 (6 months ago).
Who makes Email Address Encoder?
Email Address Encoder is developed and maintained by Till Krüss.
What are the best alternatives to Email Address Encoder?
The most popular alternatives to Email Address Encoder are Spectra Legacy (1M+ installs), Breadcrumb NavXT (800K+ installs) and PDF Embedder (300K+ installs).
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