WebFacing™ – Email Accounts management for cPanel®

🕸️ By WebFacing™. Read, send, show, manage, list, create, add, remove or delete email accounts, old messages, forwarders and autoresponders.
One click read, send and manage all your emails without a login step. Update notification recipients. Backup and download your complete cPanel® account.

This plugin requires your site is hosted on a cPanel® equipped server.

It uses it’s UAPI through shell access by default, or via HTTP API. Using without shell_exec initially requires a temporary access token generated in the cPanel® native interface.

Translation ready. Ready translations are

• Norwegian (bokmål)

Current features

• REMOVED: Dashboard widget with three live graphic server memory usage and server load gauge charts (can eassily be minimized or hidden via Screen Options or programatically)
• WP Block for frontend access user’s own Webmail
• Bulk entry of forwarders and email accounts (as free trial only, very limited use)
• Screen Options to select visible forms on New Email screen, saved for as user option (and per site for Multisite)
• Shortcode [wf_cpanel_email_webmail] or as [wf_cpanel_email_webmail]My Email[/wf_cpanel_email_webmail] for frontend access user’s own Webmail
• cPanel® API Tokens Management – needed in case shell_exec is not available or when accessing a remote server
• Backup complete cPanel® hosting account to file, and download it
• Restore account backup files by extracting it to a folder (experimental)
• Semi automated migration to new email server, including setup of new accounts for users, with sending setup instructions, passwords and links to setup guides for most common email clients
• Add 10 single Email Accounts per week (without Pro nag) — actually unlimited
• Remove single/multiple Email Accounts
• List mailboxes with number of messages for each box
• Remove old messages from mailboxes (older than 52 weeks as default)
• Shrink a mailbox (empty it)
• Change storage quota for for email accounts
• Add 20 forwarders per week (without Pro nag) — actually unlimited
• Add/remove single/multiple Email Failure addresses or Blackhole addresses
• Add/delete/edit email autoresponders (for, subject, body, from, start, stop, interval)
• Send single cPanel® Email Account Instruction (Client Setup) to specfied address
• Send multipe cPanel® Email Account Instructions (Client Setups) to yourself for distribution
• Open your cPanel® Webmail app for selected account (single click/tap – no further login needed!)
• Set/change Email Account passwords
• Set Default Email Address (catch-all) as forwarder, failure or blackhole
• View/change Notification/Contact Email Addresses
• Access for any user to view and read their own emails, if given the cpanel capability (Use custom code or a Roles/Capabilities Manager plugin)

• Support for subdomain email addresses when the main domain is a subdomain (only)

• In case the shell_exec function is disabled in your server PHP configuration, create a token in native cPanel® interface and add one of these lines to your wp-config.php file, functions.php in your child theme, in Must-use plugin or a custom regular plugin

  • const WF_CPANEL_API_TOKEN = 'my-temp-api-token';
  • define( 'WF_CPANEL_API_TOKEN', 'my-temp-api-token' );
  • See Manage API Tokens in cPanel®
  • The WF_CPANEL_API_TOKEN constant may be removed when a new token is created and activated from the plugin admin page

• Option to set the default visibility for users on New Email screen (users may still set their own preferences):

  • add_filter( 'wf-cpanel-email-new-email_user-option', static function( bool $default, string $option, int $user_id ) {
if ( $option === 'wc-show-new-blackhole' /*or by $user_id*/ ) {
$default = true/*false*/;
}
return $default;
}, 10, 3 );

• Option to allow other users than those with manage_options capability to manage email adresses, single- or multisite, one of the following:

  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_capability', static fn( string $cap ): string => $my_cpanel_email_cap );
  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_capability', static fn( string $cap ) => 'edit_published_pages' );

• Option to allow other users than those with manage_options capability to see the dashboard widget, or remove it, one of the following:

  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_widget_capability', static fn( string $cap ): string => $my_cpanel_widget_cap );
  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_widget_capability', static fn( string $cap ) => 'edit_published_pages' );
  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_widget_capability', static fn( string $cap ) => 'do_not_allow' );

• Option to alter the refresh interval in seconds for the dashboard widget, one of the following:

  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_widget_interval', static fn( int $interval ): int => $my_cpanel_widget_interval );
  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_widget_interval', static fn( int $interval ) => 45 );

• Option to limit email addresses to current site domain, even for single site admins, one of the following

  • const WF_CPANEL_EMAIL_SITE_DOMAIN_ONLY = true;
  • define( 'WF_CPANEL_EMAIL_SITE_DOMAIN_ONLY', true );
  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_site_domain_only', '__return_true' );
  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_site_domain_only', fn() => true );

• Multisite Network: Option not to limit email addresses to current subsite domain, for site admins that are not network (super) admins, one of the following:

  • const WF_CPANEL_EMAIL_SITE_DOMAIN_ONLY = false;
  • define( 'WF_CPANEL_EMAIL_SITE_DOMAIN_ONLY', false );
  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_site_domain_only', '__return_false' );
  • add_filter( 'wf_cpanel_email_site_domain_only', fn() => false );

• Many optional parameters and API filters for the shortcode output, see includes/ShortCode.php until further tested and documented

• If you want to access another user on the server, use one of the following

  • const WF_CPANEL_USER = 'my-username';
  • define( 'WF_CPANEL_USER', 'my-username' );

• If you want to access a remote server, use one of the following

  • const WF_CPANEL_HOST = 'my-host';
  • define( 'WF_CPANEL_HOST', 'my-host' );
  • using WF_CPANEL_HOSTrequires WF_CPANEL_USER to also be defined

• Automaticallly create new accounts when a new user is registered?
  add_action( ‘user_register’, static function( int $user_id, array $userdata ): void {
  // What to do just after the registraton here, like this (adds an email address that forwards to all users, a mailing list):
  if ( method_exists( ‘WebFacing\cPanel\UAPI’, ‘add_forwarder’ ) ) {
  \WebFacing\cPanel\UAPI::add_forwarder( ‘all-users@yoursite.tld, ‘$userdata[‘user_email’] );
  }
  }, 2 );

• Site Health

  • Tests and information
  • Check auto detecting and current email routing in an extra Site Health tab (to any email address sent from your server)

Possible future features

• Scheduled automatic removal of old messages in/from mailboxes
• Import migration list for create account, send instructions and password to current address
• Delete selected email messages from mailboxes (by selectd message age etc.)
• Suspend/unsuspend incoming/outgoing for email accounts (if requested)
• Suspend/unsuspend login to email accounts (if requested)
• Domain level email forwarding
• Domain Managament
• DNS Zone editing

Limitations, security, privacy – be warned

• Maximum New Forwarders = 20, Maximum New Accounts = 5, weekly reset
• Trial: Maximum New Forwarders as bulk entry = 4, Maximum New Accounts as bulk entry = 2
• Now works without shell access! Will not work at all if shell_exec is disabled in php.ini
• Works only for admins, or other users with a custom cpanel capability and email on site domain (so far)
• Any admin (if multisite, only network admins), or user with the filtered capability, on a site, can fully access any account on the cPanel® server instance
• No AYS warnings for delete actions
• If several sites/admins share the same cPanel® account, without being part of a WP Multisite network, no bulletproof separation, because of the way the cPanel® UAPI CLI works, with or without this plugin

Pro Addon

• Pro Addon plugin was released May 1, 2023 at https://webfacing.eu/plugin/wf-cpanel-email-accounts-pro/ and will unlock in bulk entry new forwarders and new accounts to the numbers in the purchesed license