In WordPress, emails are sent from different places. Most typically are mails sent by a form plugin. In probably most of them you can set the “from name” and “form email”. But there are also mails that are sent from WordPress core. One example of such an email is the “Password Recovery Mail”. Also some other plugins might send emails either to a user or to the admin.

Change the default “from” values

If an email is sent and the name and email address are not set explicitly, WordPress will always use “WordPress” and “[email protected]” as the defaults. Unfortunately there is no setting in the dashboard to change those default.

Overwrite the values using filters

There are two filter you can use to overwrite the name and the email address. Simply put the following into a (mu-)plugin and activate it:

// Change the "from name"
function wp_email_set_from_name( $from_name ) {
	return 'Your Name';
}
add_filter( 'wp_mail_from_name', 'wp_email_set_from_name' );
// Change the "from email"
function wp_email_set_from_email( $from_email ) {
	return '[email protected]';
}
add_filter( 'wp_mail_from', 'wp_email_set_from_email' );

This will overwrite the two values. But it will overwrite it for any email. That’s probably not what you want. Unfortunately the filters are only called, when the default values have already been set. So we cannot simply check if explicit values have been used while sending an email. But we can still check for those default values and only set you own values, if they match the defaults:

// Change the default "from name"
function wp_email_set_from_name( $from_name ) {
	if ( 'WordPress' === $from_name ) {
		return 'Your Name';
	}

	return $from_name;
}
add_filter( 'wp_mail_from_name', 'wp_email_set_from_name' );
// Change the default "from email"
function wp_email_set_from_email( $from_email ) {
	if ( false !== strpos( $from_email, 'wordpress@' ) ) {
		return '[email protected]';
	}

	return $from_email;
}
add_filter( 'wp_mail_from', 'wp_email_set_from_email' );

This should now only set new values, if they are the default values. You can still set another name or email address e.g. in a form plugin.

Conclusion

Overwriting the default name and email address for sent emails can be done with some filters. But be careful not to overwrite them for any case, but only in those cases, where the defaults are used, not when another name and email address have been set already.