Want to save your site’s form data in your WordPress database?
With the WPForms plugin, it’s super easy to store your form entries in the native WordPress database.
In this post, we’ll show you exactly how to save contact form data in your WordPress database and how to manage your entries from the dashboard.
It’s fairly easy to store entries from your WordPress form to database. As you’ll learn below, you should be able to access and view your WordPress database even if you don’t have a technical background.
In This Article
Let’s jump right into it.
Even though you might not see it on the frontend, WordPress automatically creates a database for you when it’s first installed. The name, host, username, and password data are stored in the configuration file called wp-config.php under MySQL database settings.
WPForms Pro is an online form builder with WordPress data collection features. The WPForms plugin automatically stores all submitted data in 4 tables in the native WordPress database. They are:
Note that the wp_ prefix in the table name is the default. The actual value is set in the wp-config.php file in WordPress. So in your WordPress installation, the prefix may look slightly different.
Most WordPress web hosting providers offer easy-to-use web applications like phpMyAdmin to manage databases after your WordPress installation. This is true regardless of whether you’re using unmanaged or managed WordPress hosting.
The name phpMyAdmin may sound strange, but it’s just a database management system. It allows users to manage the database entries on their WordPress site using a visual interface. Pretty cool, right?
If you’re using Bluehost for your WordPress hosting, you can find the link to the phpMyAdmin database server by scrolling to the bottom of the homepage once logged in under Helpful Links » Advanced » phpMyAdmin:
Looking for the WordPress database location? Let’s take a look at how to view form entries in your WordPress database using phpMyAdmin.
Here’s how to access the database so you can find your WordPress data collection from the backend. In phpMyAdmin, select your WordPress database and then click on the table wp_wpforms_entries.
Here, you can find all your form entries in the fields column.
You can do lots of things here, like creating tables. For more details, you can read this beginner’s guide to WordPress database management with phpMyAdmin.
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder. The Lite version sends entries to you via email. The Pro version lets you easily access your form entries and manage them all inside your WordPress dashboard, acting as a control panel.
Storing and retrieving data from the WordPress database is extremely user-friendly with WPForms Pro.
Let’s take a look at how to manage your form entries on your WordPress website.
Before we get started, let’s create a simple WordPress contact form with WPForms.
If you need help, you can refer to this article on how to create a simple contact form with WPForms. You can create a new form entirely from scratch or use a form template from WPForms’ gallery of 1,900+ WordPress form templates to get started.
Next, go to your form builder and click on Settings » General.
Under the Advanced option, ensure that the Disable entry storing information in WordPress option is turned off.
After publishing your form, be sure to test it by completing and submitting it yourself. This will create a form entry so that we have some data to access from your WordPress dashboard.
Now, navigate to WPForms » Entries in your WordPress dashboard to see your test entry.
WPForms lets you favorite your entries, mark them as read, and even delete the ones you don’t want.
Also, you can easily search and add filters to your contact form entries in your dashboard. You can broad search by Any form field or set conditions across form fields to search for a specific entry.
If you want, you can also filter form entries by date.
Now, under the Actions column, click View to see your form entry.
And here’s how an individual entry will look.
You can also export these entries as a CSV file or XLSX from this menu.
In WPForms, you can accept credit card payments with the free version and the Pro version. Payment details are stored in the WordPress database, even in WPForms Lite.
If you’re collecting payments through your forms, you can access the details on the Payments screen in the WPForms Settings area.
It’s easy to review your payment information in the WordPress dashboard. WPForms will show you the total payments you received and display the information on a chart.
If you’re a WPForms Pro user, you can also add coupon codes to your forms. You’ll see the details of coupons in the Payments area along with your revenue and transactions.
If you’re seeing your entries in your database but you’re not getting email notifications about them, there are usually 2 main reasons:
1. Your Emails Are Seen As ‘Spoof’ Emails
Spoof emails are similar to spam. Except emails that are suspected of spoofing rarely even make it to an inbox. This usually happens when WordPress sends you a notification when a form is completed using the email of the person who completed it as the “from” sender. This is often flagged as spoofing because this email is coming from your WordPress site and masks the actual sender of the email (your WordPress account).
And then, email notifications can get lost and never end up in your inbox.
2. Your Hosting Company Doesn’t Use the PHP Mail Function
Another reason you’re likely missing email notifications is because of the PHP mail function and your hosting provider.
Your web host may not support the PHP mail function (which is very common these days). WordPress uses the PHP mail function to send emails from your site, including emails generated by contact form plugins. This is why we recommend using SMTP to send emails from WordPress instead of using the default PHP mail function.
Luckily, this is an easy fix.
The easiest and most effective way to fix the Contact Form 7 is not sending email issue for most people is to use WP Mail SMTP. It’s the most powerful SMTP and PHP mailer WordPress plugin on the planet. Plus, there’s also a free version available.
One of the greatest things about the WP Mail SMTP plugin is that the Elite plan offers a White Glove Setup service where they do all the installation and the technical stuff for you. Plus, WP Mail SMTP is integrated with many of the most popular transactional mailers like:
To install the WP Mail SMTP WordPress plugin, purchase a paid version (to start including your email logs in your WordPress data collection) or head to your WordPress dashboard to install the plugin for free to access basic features. It’s the best way to get your WordPress form to the database easily.
There are different steps for each mailer you’re using, so to complete setup with this plugin, check out the full guide on how to get WordPress form notifications using the WP Mail SMTP plugin. You’ll be receiving emails from your website in no time.
That’s it! You now know how to access and manage your WordPress database with a plugin.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also want to read our articles on how to export WordPress form entries to CSV and how to save form submissions as PDF files.
What are you waiting for? Get started with the most powerful WordPress forms plugin today.
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Osama is a Senior Writer at WPForms. He specializes in taking WordPress plugins apart for testing and sharing his insights with the world. Learn More
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Are you wondering how to get an unlimited WPForms trial for free?
You can use WPForms Lite without spending a penny. In this post, we’ll show you how to get an unlimited free WPForms trial and start building contact forms on your WordPress site right away.
Would you like to collect more data from the people who fill out your WordPress forms?
WPForms includes a Hidden field that lets you learn more about your users without showing them additional fields in your forms. In this article, we share our favorite tips and tricks for learning more information about your users.
Hey Jem, we are sorry for any trouble. In order to make sure we answer your question as thoroughly as possible and avoid any confusion. Would you mind reach out to us with additional details and form URL so that we can help you further on this case? Thanks.
Sylwek says:The article is confusing, i wasted few hours with wpforms and now i see that wpform is not storing data in database and the only table created by wpforms is wp_forms_tasks_meta
Nikhil Sebastian says:Hi there, We are sorry for any trouble. In order to make sure we answer your question as thoroughly as possible and avoid any confusion. Would you mind reaching out to us with additional details of the issue you are facing here! Thanks 🙂
jason says:Same as the above user. Totally outdated doc. This is probably a money grab. It now says: Your form entries are not being stored locally, but are backed up remotely. If you upgrade to WPForms PRO, you can restore your entries and they’ll be available in the WordPress dashboard. It appears they stop storing it in the DB.
Nikhil Sebastian says:Hi Jason, I am sorry to hear about the confusion you are facing here! Please know that this article is regarding the data table of how the data is stored in the database. The one that you are referring to, is the Lite Connect feature to enable storage of entries while you are the Lite version. Please see this guide for more details. Hope this helps!
Manisha Lohana says: hey i want to store my wpform entries to mysql databse, kindly help me in this Nikhil Sebastian says:Hi Manisha, to connect WPForms to a MySQL database would be great, though we do not have one at the moment. I have made a note and placed it on our feature list to consider in the future as we continue to plan out our roadmap. I see that Zapier, a connector service, does have the ability to connect to this. If you’d like to consider that approach, it would be a way you could possibly connect to the service now. We have a Zapier addon available with our Pro license level or higher . Here’s our tutorial on setting up the Zapier addon. You can see Zapier’s page on this specific integration here Hope this helps! 🙂
Sylvain says:Hello,
Is it possible to encrypt the personnal datas in database?
We’d like not to have personnal datas in clear in database
Hi Sylvain – I am sorry as we do not have an inbuilt feature to encrypt data at database level. However, we do follow the standard rules of WordPress in storing data in database. Hope this helps! 🙂
Jason Bash says:I would just like to be able to edit the form entry data in more of a grid view instead of having to go into each form submission. Users enter data and then we update a few other fields. Is there a “sheet editor” view that allows updating more than one record at a time?
Prashant Rai says:Hey Jason – I apologize, we currently don’t have a entry sheet editor feature that would allow you to edit multiple entires at once. I do agree this would be great, and I’ll add this into our feature request tracker so that it’s on the developer’s radar.
Oseni Yusuf says: Can I create a unique login ID and Password with this plugin for my website users Prashant Rai says:Hey Oseni – You can consider using our User Registration addon that allows you to create login and registration forms that can be used to allow users to login and register. The User Registration addon comes with the Pro and above license level.
George Sfyrakis says:Hello there, can you help me with an issue, I do update a spesific value in all the saved entries in db and they are shown the correct value, but in the dashboard the system still shows the entry entered from the form which is different and doesn’t change.
Why is this happening?
Hey George – We’d be happy to help! When you get a chance, please drop us a line in support so we can assist. If you have a WPForms license, you have access to our email support, so please submit a support ticket. Otherwise, we provide limited complimentary support in the WPForms Lite WordPress.org support forum. Thanks 🙂
Aditi says:I’m working with the WPFORM plugin in WordPress, and I want to configure it to allow users to upload only CSV files. Specifically, I want to read and process the CSV data once it’s uploaded. Does anyone have experience with this or can guide me on how to achieve it?”
