Elementor Form Cc Updater

A small WordPress plugin that sets a uniform Cc on the email action of every Elementor Pro form across your whole site - in one click (or one WP-CLI command).

Elementor stores each form's settings inside the page's _elementor_data JSON, scattered across many posts. If forms have been built over time, their Cc fields drift out of sync - some have addresses, some don't, and the ones that do aren't consistent. This plugin finds every form on the site and forces the Cc to a single value you control.

Why

• You need the same people Cc'd on all form notifications.
• You don't know how many forms there are or where they live.
• You want it to stay uniform without hand-editing dozens of forms.

Features

• Finds every form automatically - recursively walks each page's element tree, including forms nested in inner sections, containers, columns, and popups, and handles multiple forms per page.
• Editable, saved address list - set the Cc addresses on the admin page; the value is stored so you can see and reuse it later.
• Dry-run preview - see exactly how many forms would change before writing anything.
• Idempotent - safe to run repeatedly; forms already matching are skipped.
• Slash-safe writes - writes _elementor_data exactly the way Elementor does (wp_json_encode + wp_slash), so escaped slashes/quotes round-trip correctly.
• WP-CLI command - run it from the command line on any site with shell/WP-CLI access.
• No autoloaded options, no front-end footprint - the only stored option is the Cc list, and it is not autoloaded.
• Mirrors the Cc onto a form's second email action too, but only when that form actually has email2 enabled.

Requirements

• WordPress 5.6+
• PHP 7.4+
• Elementor Pro (for the forms themselves; the plugin reads the data Elementor Pro stores)

Installation

1. Download/clone this repository into wp-content/plugins/elementor-form-cc-updater.
2. Activate Elementor Form Cc Updater in Plugins.

Or download the repo as a ZIP and install it via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.

Usage

Admin page

1. Go to Tools → Form Cc Updater.
2. Enter the Cc addresses (comma separated). Invalid entries are dropped and reported; duplicates are removed.
3. Click Save & Preview (dry run) to see how many forms would change.
4. Click Save & Apply changes to write the Cc to every form.

The current saved value is always shown on the page so you know what's configured.

WP-CLI

# Preview using a given address list (also saves it):
wp form-cc --cc="one@example.com, two@example.com" --dry-run

# Apply using the saved address list:
wp form-cc

# Set and apply in one go:
wp form-cc --cc="one@example.com, two@example.com"

Example output:

Cc target: one@example.com, two@example.com
Posts scanned:         249
Posts updated:         237
Forms changed:         237
Forms already correct: 12
Errors:                0
Success: Cc applied to all forms.

How it works

1. Runs a single SQL query for postmeta rows where meta_key = '_elementor_data' and the value contains "widgetType":"form", so only pages that actually contain a form are loaded.
2. Decodes each blob and recursively walks the element tree, finding every form widget.
3. Compares each form's email_to_cc to your target value - leaving matches untouched and updating the rest.
4. On apply, re-encodes the modified page with wp_json_encode(), runs it through wp_slash(), writes it back with update_metadata(), and clears Elementor's CSS/file cache.

Because preview only reads and compares in memory, it's effectively instant even on sites with hundreds of forms.

Notes & safety

• Overwrites existing Cc values by design, so all forms end up identical. Take a database backup first if you're unsure.
• Only the Cc field is touched; To, Subject, Message, and everything else are left alone.
• Settings live in _elementor_data, so changes are visible in the Elementor editor and survive normally.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.