Test Email and Simulation

SendGrail provides two tools for verifying your email configuration: Test Email sends a real message, while Email Simulation performs a dry run to validate routing and connection resolution without delivering anything.

Test Email

The test email feature sends an actual email through your configured SMTP connection to verify end-to-end delivery.

Options

Field	Description
Connection	Select a specific connection or use the default
Recipient	The email address to send the test to
Subject	Custom subject line for the test email
Message	Custom message body

What Gets Sent

The test email is an HTML-formatted message containing your custom message along with a verification notice confirming that the email was sent through SendGrail. This helps the recipient (typically yourself) confirm delivery and rendering.

Fallback Detection

If your selected connection fails and the email is delivered via a fallback mechanism, SendGrail reports this in the test result. This alerts you that your primary connection may have an issue even though the email was ultimately delivered.

TIP

After setting up a new connection, always send a test email to confirm it works before relying on it for production traffic.

WARNING

Test emails are real emails and will appear in your email log. They count toward your provider's sending limits.

Email Simulation

Email simulation is a dry-run mode that evaluates your configuration without sending any email. It is accessible via the Simulate button on the Test Email page.

What Simulation Reports

Output	Description
Connection	Which SMTP connection would be used
From Email	The resolved sender email address
From Name	The resolved sender display name
Tracking Flags	Whether open tracking and click tracking would be applied
Routing Rule Match	Which routing rule matched (if any), or indicates default routing

When to Use Simulation

• Verify routing rules -- Confirm that a specific email would be routed to the correct connection based on your rules
• Check connection resolution -- See which connection would handle the email without risking a delivery failure
• Debug configuration -- Identify unexpected behavior in your routing or connection setup

Example workflow

1. Create a routing rule that sends WooCommerce emails through Postmark
2. Open the Test Email page and click Simulate
3. Enter a subject containing "order" and run the simulation
4. Confirm the output shows the Postmark connection and the correct routing rule
5. Once satisfied, send a real test email to verify delivery