Grade C

Email Address Encoder

Name: Email Address Encoder
Rating: 3.9 (160 reviews)
Author: Till Krüss

⤓ Download v1.0.25 on WordPress.org ↗

by Till Krüssupdated 2026-04-12🌟The Rising Star

Great for hiding emails but terrible at hiding your credit card details.

GrowingPoor rating

66/100

The free version works well but the Pro version is a billing and support nightmare.

Loved20/40

Trustworthy10/15

Fair & Honest6/15

Maintained18/18

Momentum12/12

✂️

You might not need this plugin. Its core job is small enough to live in your theme's functions.php.

Show the snippet

function encode_email_addresses( $content ) {
    return preg_replace_callback(
        '/[a-zA-Z0-9._%+\-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.\-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}/',
        function ( $matches ) {
            $encoded = '';
            $chars   = str_split( $matches[0] );
            foreach ( $chars as $i => $char ) {
                $encoded .= ( $i % 2 === 0 )
                    ? '&#' . ord( $char ) . ';'
                    : '&#x' . dechex( ord( $char ) ) . ';';
            }
            return $encoded;
        },
        $content
    );
}

foreach ( [ 'the_content', 'the_excerpt', 'widget_text', 'comment_text' ] as $filter ) {
    add_filter( $filter, 'encode_email_addresses', 20 );
}

Keep in mind:The plugin also handles mailto links and provides a shortcode for encoding arbitrary text; those are not replicated here.

More plugins you can skip →

Active installs

~150,000

our estimate · wp.org shows 100k+

→ on track for 200k+in ~4 months

Rating

4.2★

160 ratings

Trend · vs a year ago

+133%

Growing fast

160 → 372 installs/day

What to watch out for

MINORverified rating is 3.85★
MINORreviews unevenly distributed over time

Downloads over time

real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend

2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03

organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median

Growing fast · +133% in the last year

160/day a year ago→372/day today

Reviews

what people actually say

Email Address Encoder is a functional free plugin for basic email obfuscation, but its paid/pro version has a deeply troubled reputation for unresponsive support, unresolved bugs, and unauthorized renewal charges.

What people like

+Considered useful and effective for preventing email spam on simple sites×3
+Free version works adequately for basic post/page content encoding×2

Common complaints

−Pro version support is effectively non-existent — multiple users report sending several emails with zero response×8
−Pro version has unresolved bugs and has gone without updates for extended periods×3
−Users report being charged for renewals after cancellation, with no recourse or refund×3
−Does not work with widgets — only processes post/page content×2
−Compatibility issues with other plugins (e.g., Plausible Analytics) reported
−Does not work with Elementor page builder
−Pro version versioning (v0.3.11) is confusingly out of step with the free version, raising maintenance concerns
−License invalidation reported without explanation, with no support response

Review trustMostly organic

3.85★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.20★
10%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
past spikeReview timing — up to 25% of all reviews landed in a single month

Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower

2023-09-182025-02-092026-06-04

5★ reviews1–4★ reviews

All-time ratings · 160 total

5★

119

4★

3★

2★

1★

Latest reviews · 90 analyzed

2025-12-18★★★★★No answer Ericmuc
2025-06-24★★★★★Do not understand the naming convention between pro and free ianstudio
2025-01-07★★★★★Eigentlich eine Frechheit!treierp
2024-12-02★★★★★pro but no support, no refund Patrice Grometto
2024-10-29★★★★★plugin wont work, no support, no refund anonymous7655621-shot
2024-08-10★★★★★pro version but no support wehpeh
2024-02-02★★★★★Important plugin in times of spam Wasilij
2024-01-26★★★★★No support, no updates mediengewerk
2024-01-19★★★★★Awful unresponsive support, bugs (paid version)Adam Liberman
2023-11-02★★★★★Not working with widgets dichternebel

Releases

recent versions from WordPress.org SVN

2026-04-12v1.0.25
2025-01-20v1.0.24
2023-11-27v1.0.23
2023-08-11v1.0.22
2020-11-21v1.0.21
2020-05-28v1.0.19
2019-04-10v0.19.0
2019-03-04v1.0.18

For developers & the curious

the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary above

Download signals

Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.

436

Baseline · median of last 7 organic days

557

Prior 7-day baseline

297

Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days

1,637

Mean release-day peak (30d)

436

Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)

-21.7%

Week-over-week organic trend

Review signals

Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.

25%

Max month share · biggest single 30-day window

1.93

Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty

62%

5★ share in analyzed sample

10%

Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity

—

Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo

3.74 → 3.85★

Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered