Squarespace contact form not working: trace it

A contact form works in two steps that look like one. The page checks the fields and passes the message on, then shows a confirmation. The email to you is a second step, and it depends on the address set for notifications, whether that address accepts mail from the site, and whether the mail provider filters it. A visitor who saw the confirmation has finished their part. If you never get the email, the message was accepted and died after that point. A missing confirmation is a different fault, and it sits on the page itself.

• Fill every field, press send, and write down exactly what appears on the screen.
• Open the form's settings. Is the address that receives notifications one you read?
• Check the spam folder of that address for the last test message you sent.
• Send a test from an address on a different mail provider. Does it arrive?
• Look for a required field the visitor cannot see or change, such as a hidden checkbox.

The visitor's screen is the one part you can reproduce exactly, so start there. Press send with every field filled in, then press it again with one field left empty. A message that stays on the page with a red line under a field means the form caught the mistake and sent nothing. A message that disappears and shows a thank you means the form accepted it. Nothing at all on the screen means the button is not reaching the form, which usually points at something covering the button, a required field hidden from the visitor, or a script that did not load on that page.

The first is the notification address. The form sends to the address set in its settings, and if that address was typed wrong, belongs to someone who has left, or points at an inbox nobody checks, the message is delivered and never read. The second is the spam folder. Mail sent from a form on your domain can be filtered as bulk or suspicious, and the copy in the spam folder is the only trace of it. The third is the reply the visitor never gets, which matters if the thank you text promised one.

Test each place on its own. Send one message to an address on a different mail provider, and one to the address you read most. If the first arrives and the second does not, the notification address is wrong or being filtered. If neither arrives, the message never left the form, so go back to what the visitor saw on the screen.

A sending fault happens on the page. The visitor presses send, the form does not accept the message, and the visitor sees an error or nothing. A delivery fault happens after acceptance. The visitor sees the thank you, and the message is missing from your inbox. Keep the two apart before you change anything, because the fixes sit in different places: the page's own blocks for the first, and the form's notification settings for the second.

Changing the notification address, the sending domain or a page layout can break the form without touching the form itself. Rerun the same simulated visitors through the same page after each change, and check the spam folder of the address that receives the message. Each simulated visitor also gets a working inbox, so a reply the form sends to the visitor can be checked too.