Email templates

Your marketplace sends emails on its own: a welcome email when someone signs up, a password reset link, a note when a listing goes live or is about to expire, a message from a buyer, a receipt. Each of these emails comes from a template that you can reword, switch off or translate.

This guide covers the wording. To choose the service that delivers your emails, the sender name and the addresses that receive copies, see Email settings.

Find the templates

1. In the admin panel, go to Email in the sidebar.
2. In the Email templates card, click Open templates.

The Email templates page lists every template in one language, with a search box. Switch language with the language menu at the top. Templates that are switched off show Off.

The list looks empty? Read Templates on a US English site below. Your emails are still being sent.

Edit a template

1. Click the template in the list.
2. Change the Subject and the Message.
3. Keep the placeholders you need (the words in square brackets, listed under Placeholders on the right).
4. Click Save changes.

Setting	What it does
Subject	The email’s subject line. It is also printed as the heading at the top of the email. Placeholders work here too.
Message	The body of the email, in plain text: line breaks are kept exactly as you type them.
Send this email	When off, this email is not sent at all, in this language.
Language	The language this version of the template is for.
From email	The address replies go to when a member answers the email. Empty means your Notify Email from Email settings.
Key	The name the site uses to find the template, such as auth-register. It can’t be changed.

Every email is wrapped in the same simple layout: your logo (from your theme), the subject as a heading, your text, and a footer with your site name and an Unsubscribe link. On some plans the footer also says “Powered by Yclas”; see Remove the Yclas branding.

Buttons and links

Write [URL.QL|View your listing] to show a link as a button with your own label. It works with any link placeholder that the template receives, for example [URL.AD|See the listing] or [URL.CHECKOUT|Pay now]. If the link is missing when the email is sent, only the label is shown.

A link placeholder on its own, such as [URL.AD], becomes a plain link that shows your site’s domain.

Change the reply address on every template

Below the list, Sender address for every email sets the From email of all templates, in every language, in one go. Type the address and click Apply to all.

Placeholders

Placeholders are replaced with real values when the email goes out. Only use the ones a template already contains, or the ones listed for it below: a placeholder that template doesn’t receive is sent as it is, brackets and all.

These work in every template:

Placeholder	Becomes
[SITE.NAME]	Your site name from Settings › General.
[SITE.URL]	A link to your home page.
[USER.NAME]	The recipient’s name.
[USER.EMAIL]	The recipient’s email address (not in emails sent to many people at once).

[URL.QL] is a “quick login” link: it signs the member in and takes them to the right page, such as their listing or a conversation. Treat emails that contain it like a key, and don’t forward them.

Every automatic email

New sites get these templates in British English. Older sites may have different wording or a few templates fewer.

Accounts

Key	Sent to	When
auth-register	The new member	They create an account. Includes their login details: [USER.EMAIL], [USER.PWD].
auth-verify-email	The new member	They sign up while User Must Verify Email is on. The [URL.QL] button confirms the address.
auth-remember	The member	They ask to reset their password.
password-changed	The member	An administrator changes their password. Includes the new one, [USER.PWD].

Listings

Key	Sent to	When
ads-confirm	The poster	Their listing needs confirming by email (moderation set to an email-confirmation mode).
ads-notify	The poster	Their listing was received and waits for your review.
ads-activated	The poster ([USER.OWNER])	You approve their listing and it goes live.
ads-user-check	The poster	Their listing goes live without moderation (straight away, or after they confirm it by email). It asks them to tell you, through [URL.CONTACT], if they didn’t post it.
ad-to-expire	The poster	Their listing expires soon.
ad-expired	The poster	Their listing has expired, or its featured period has ended. [URL.EDITAD] opens the listing for editing.
ads-subscribers	Members with a matching alert	A new listing matches their listing alert.
ads-to-admin	Administrators and moderators	A new listing is posted, if Notify Me on New Listing is on in Email settings.
awaiting-moderation	Your Notify Moderation Email	A listing waits for your approval, if that address is filled in.
ad-review	The seller	Someone reviews their listing: [RATE], [DESCRIPTION]. See Reviews.

Listing templates use [AD.NAME] or [AD.TITLE] for the title (both are the listing title; keep whichever the template already uses) and [URL.AD] for its address.

Messages and contact

Key	Sent to	When
contact-admin	You	Someone uses your contact page.
user-contact	The seller	A buyer uses the contact form on a listing (when messaging is off). Replies go straight to the buyer.
user-profile-contact	The member	Someone uses the contact form on their profile (when messaging is off).
messaging-ad-contact	The seller	A buyer starts a conversation about a listing. See Messaging.
messaging-user-contact	The member	Someone sends them a direct message.
messaging-reply	The other person in the conversation	A new reply.
new-forum-answer	Everyone in the topic, and you	Someone replies in a forum topic, or starts a topic.

The contact emails use [EMAIL.SENDER], [EMAIL.FROM] (the sender’s address), [EMAIL.SUBJECT] and [EMAIL.BODY] (their message). The messaging emails use [FROM.NAME], [TO.NAME] and [DESCRIPTION].

Orders and payments

Key	Sent to	When
new-order	The member who ordered	Two days after an order about a listing was left unpaid, as a reminder. [URL.CHECKOUT] opens the payment page.
ads-purchased	The buyer	They bought an item. Includes [ORDER.ID], [ORDER.AMOUNT] and the seller’s [BUYER.INSTRUCTIONS].
ads-sold	The seller	Their item was sold.
out-of-stock	The seller	An item ran out of stock and is hidden.
order-shipped	The buyer	The seller marked the order as shipped: [ORDER.SHIPPING_PROVIDER_NAME], [ORDER.SHIPPING_TRACKING_CODE].
mark-as-received	The buyer	A reminder to confirm the order arrived.
order-cancelled	The buyer	An order was cancelled.
safe-payment-requested	The seller	A buyer wants to pay with safe payment and the seller must set up how they get paid.
plan-expired	The member	Their membership plan ended and needs paying again. [PLAN.NAME].

Digest

Key	Sent to	When
digest	Members who chose a digest	The email digest of new listings. [ADS] is the list of listings.

Templates in each language

Every template exists once per language. When your site sends an email, it looks for the template in the language being used at that moment (usually the language the member is browsing in). If there is none, it uses the British English (en_UK) version.

• To translate a template, open the language in the list (see below) and edit its copy there.
• A template that exists in a language but is switched off is not sent in that language. It does not fall back to British English.
• You can delete a template in any language except British English. Emails in that language then use the British English version again.

Templates on a US English site

Templates are stored in British English (en_UK). On a site set to US English (en_US), or any other language, the Email templates list opens in your site’s language and looks empty. Your emails are still sent, using the British English templates.

To edit them in your site’s language, click Copy templates from en_UK on the empty list (or Copy templates to en_US in the Email templates card on the Email page). This copies every template you don’t have yet in that language. From then on, edit the copies: they are the ones your site uses.

Add a template

+ New template is for adding a template the list doesn’t have, for example a translation in a new language or a template an older site is missing. The Key must match exactly the key of the email it is for, such as auth-register. A template with a key the site doesn’t use is never sent.

Tips

• Send yourself the emails: sign up with a second address, post a listing, reset your password. Read them on your phone.
• Keep the sentence that tells people why they got the email, and keep the button.
• If members say they don’t get emails, the wording is rarely the cause. See Emails aren’t arriving and Make sure your emails arrive.

Related guides

• Email settings — sending service, sender name and notification addresses.
• Newsletters — one-off emails to your members.
• Email digest — a regular email with new listings.
• Emails aren’t arriving — what to check when emails go missing.