The Emails module is where you design the messages your members actually receive. It gives you branded email templates, reusable components, WordPress email overrides, and queue controls, so your transactional emails feel like part of the same product experience instead of an afterthought.
The important change in the current BricksMembers release is that automations now live in their own shared Automations hub. That means email sends, provider actions, and outbound webhooks are all managed from one place, while the Emails area stays focused on designing and managing the emails themselves.
What the Emails Module Does
- Create full email templates for welcomes, access messages, reminders, receipts, onboarding, and other transactional messages
- Build reusable components such as headers, footers, logos, legal blocks, or shared callouts
- Replace standard WordPress emails like password reset or account-related notifications with your own branded versions
- Preview, test, queue, and monitor email delivery from inside WordPress
What Moved to the Automations Hub
If you want an email to send when something happens, you now set that up in BricksMembers → Automations, not inside the Emails screen. This makes the workflow much clearer because all event-based actions now live together in one place.
For example, you can now create one workflow that starts when access is granted, then sends a BRM email, adds a tag in Kit, updates a subscriber in Mailchimp or MailerLite, and sends a webhook to Zapier, Make, or n8n if you want more automation outside WordPress. Brevo contact sync is configured in BricksMembers → Automations → Connections, where you add Brevo list pills from each BricksMembers level select field instead of setting it up inside Emails.
The current workflow builder also makes that easier to understand because it is now a visual flow. You can click the email step directly, pick the BRM template from a guided sidebar, and add delays or workflow conditions before later actions without treating the whole workflow like one giant form.
Since 0.9.95, the visual email designer keeps Columns block widths in sync when you change the number of columns, and confirming Delete on the Emails screen (templates, reusable components, or queue jobs) reliably completes the AJAX delete.
Since 0.9.94, the Send Email automation action can target either one resolved recipient or a resolved audience. Use the normal single-recipient mode for transactional messages tied to the automation event user, and audience mode when one workflow should send the selected BRM email to a member group that matches your audience settings.
Workflow email actions have an Email Type setting. Keep setup links, password emails, access notices, receipts, and other account-critical messages as Transactional / system. Choose Marketing only for promotional emails; marketing emails can use {{unsubscribe_url}}, and BRM skips those marketing sends for recipients who already unsubscribed while still allowing transactional emails.
Since 1.1.0, the starter-template dropdown also includes practical group-license messages, including membership access welcome, group owner welcome, group invite accepted, payment failed or past due, and access changed notice. Use these as starting points, then wire them to the right Automation triggers.
That sidebar is also meant to stay easy to scan. Instead of dumping long helper paragraphs or raw JSON fields into the workflow UI, BricksMembers now keeps routine email setup guided and uses small tooltip icons for the extra explanation when you need it.
How Emails and Automations Work Together
- Enable the Emails module in BricksMembers → Modules
- Create one or more templates in BricksMembers → Emails → Templates
- Add reusable components if you want consistent branding across several templates
- Open BricksMembers → Automations, create the workflow that should send that email, and select the BRM email template from the action sidebar
- Use BricksMembers → Emails → Queue & Logs for email delivery details and BricksMembers → Automations → Jobs for shared workflow execution logs
What You’ll Find in the Emails Area
- Templates for full email messages
- Components for reusable building blocks
- WordPress Emails for replacing the default WordPress account emails
- Queue & Logs for scheduled, sent, and failed email jobs
- Settings for sender details and email defaults
- A conditional upgrade issue notice only when an older email automation upgrade needs manual attention
Provider connections do not live in the Emails area. Mailchimp, Brevo, MailerLite, Kit, MailerPress, and webhook destinations are configured in BricksMembers → Automations → Connections, while Emails stays focused on message design and delivery history.
What Happens to Older Email Automations
If you used the older BRM email automation system, BricksMembers migrates those rules into the shared Automations platform. Most sites will not need to manage that migration day to day.
That is why the Emails page no longer keeps a permanent Automations tab. Instead, you only see an upgrade issue notice above the normal tabs if BRM needs your attention because it could not verify the old automation upgrade automatically. On a healthy setup, workflow creation and workflow management simply live in BricksMembers → Automations.
Creating Your First Email Template
Start with something practical. A welcome email, access confirmation, or password-reset email is usually the best first step. In the template builder, you can create the email layout, add buttons and branding, and insert placeholders such as the member name, email address, level names, or login URL.
If you want a faster starting point, use the starter-template dropdown on the Templates screen. That now includes options like a ready-made New Content Available email, which fits especially well when you are pairing Emails with drip releases or unlock announcements.
If you want a consistent brand wrapper, create a reusable header and footer as components. That way, when you update a shared section later, your templates stay aligned without rebuilding each one manually.
The designer is also faster to edit than before. You can now double-click directly on more canvas content, including normal text, button labels, quote text, list items, table cells, and social-link labels, instead of bouncing back to the inspector for every small change.
Replacing WordPress Emails
Many membership sites forget that password resets, account changes, or other WordPress notifications are also part of the customer experience. The Emails module lets you map those messages to BRM templates, so even your “boring” system emails still feel consistent and professional.
This is especially useful if you want your reset emails, new-user emails, or comment-related notifications to match the same brand design as your member onboarding and transactional emails.
For first-time account emails, use BricksMembers → Emails → WordPress Emails and map New User (to user) to a BRM template that contains {{reset_link}}. If you set a custom new-user password setup page in the Emails settings, BricksMembers rewrites that reset link to your selected page instead of sending people to the default WordPress password screen. This is a WordPress email override, not a workflow-builder automation.
How Gift and Account Emails Fit In
This also matters for the newer gifting flows. When BRM creates a new recipient account during a gift transfer or native gift claim, WordPress can still send its normal account email, and the Emails module is the place where you can brand that experience properly.
Native Payments gifting also sends its own claim email to the recipient, but the broader account-email experience still benefits from having your WordPress email mappings and sender details set up well. In other words, gifting made the Emails module more useful, not less.
A Better Way to Think About It
The clean mental model now looks like this:
- Emails is where you design and manage the email content
- Automations is where you decide when that email should be sent and what else should happen at the same time
That separation makes BricksMembers much easier to manage. You no longer have to think of automations as something “inside” the email system. They are part of the broader automation platform, and emails are simply one powerful action inside it.