Read and manage the activity log

Understand log statuses, sources, reasons, retention, CSV export, and log clearing.

Written By Kelsey

Last updated About 1 month ago

The activity log records recent operational metadata about how Always Alert handled WordPress email and monitoring events.

Go to Always Alert → Logs to view the 25 most recent entries.

Log columns

  • Time: when the event occurred, using the site’s WordPress time settings.

  • Status: the result category, such as injected, excluded, skipped, or an operational result.

  • Source: the attributed plugin, builder, WordPress System, WooCommerce, or Generic wp_mail.

  • Subject: the outgoing email subject, when relevant.

  • To: a short recipient summary rather than a full raw header dump.

  • Method: BCC, CC, or To when a copy method applies.

  • Reason: a plain-language rendering of the internal reason code.

An eligible notification does not always produce an added copy. For example, duplicate prevention may find that the fallback address is already present.

What the log stores

Log entries can include:

  • local and GMT timestamps;

  • status and reason codes;

  • subject line;

  • short recipient summary;

  • fallback recipient address;

  • injection method;

  • detected source.

The log does not store email bodies, form field values, attachments, raw headers, or message HTML.

Always Alert may briefly inspect part of a message in memory to identify a source. That excerpt is discarded and is not written to the database.

Retention

Set retention under Always Alert → Settings → Activity log. The default is 30 days and the allowed range is 1 to 365 days.

Choose the shortest period that meets your operational and accountability needs.

Download a CSV

Select Download CSV on the Logs page to export the available log entries for investigation or maintenance records.

Treat the CSV as operational data. Store it only where authorised people can access it and delete it according to your retention policy. Spreadsheet cells are hardened against formula execution, but normal privacy and security controls still apply.

Clear the log

Go to Always Alert → Tools → Activity Log and select Clear Logs.

Clearing removes the recent activity entries shown on the Logs page. It does not reset monitoring counters, last-seen state, or plugin settings.

Use the log to troubleshoot

When a copy appears to be missing:

  1. Find the event by time and subject.

  2. Check whether its source was recognised.

  3. Read its status and reason.

  4. Confirm the effective method and recipient summary.

  5. Compare the event with the active coverage mode and exclusions.

  6. Continue into the SMTP provider log if Always Alert handled the message but it did not reach the mailbox.

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