Profile Contact Form on Every Member Profile

The plugin adds a “Contact” tab to every member profile that accepts contact. When another member or a visitor opens that tab, they see a private form addressed to that specific member.

How the form is reached

• A member visiting another member’s profile sees the “Contact” tab in the profile sub-nav. Inside the tab is the Send message sub-tab, which holds the form.
• A logged-out visitor sees the same tab on any public profile whose owner accepts contact.
• The legacy /contact-me/ slug from older versions still works. It 301-redirects to the current /contact/ slug so old bookmarks, email links, and notification URLs keep resolving.

When the tab appears

The Contact tab is shown when the profile owner (the recipient) accepts contact. Three recipient-side gates decide this:

1. The global Show a “Contact” tab on every member profile toggle is on (Access tab).
2. The owner’s role is in the Who can be contacted list, or the owner is an administrator (admins are always contactable).
3. The owner has not opted out from their own BuddyPress Settings.

The sender’s own permission (the Who can send messages list) is enforced when the form is submitted, not by hiding the tab. A visitor or member who is not in the send list can still open the form, but the submission is rejected with “You are not allowed to send messages.” See Guest contact and the Access tab.

What logged-in members fill in

• Subject - 3 to 200 characters.
• Message - 10 to 5000 characters.

The sender’s name and email are pulled from their profile and shared with the recipient automatically, so there is no surprise about what the recipient sees.

What logged-out visitors fill in

Logged-out visitors see two extra fields (name and email) plus a math captcha. See the dedicated Guest contact page for the full guest experience.

Validation rules

The same rules apply to both the classic POST path and the REST endpoint, so the experience is identical whether or not JavaScript is enabled:

• Name - 2 to 100 characters.
• Email - must pass is_email() for guests; pulled from the user record for members.
• Subject - 3 to 200 characters.
• Message - 10 to 5000 characters.

If any field fails, the form re-renders with a clear inline error.

Where messages go

Submissions are stored in the {prefix}contact_me table (sender, recipient, subject, message, name, email, datetime). The recipient sees them in their own profile under Contact > Inbox. See the Inbox page.

Form placement elsewhere

The form lives at /contact/send/ on each member’s profile. If you want it somewhere else, such as a custom page or a team bio, use the [buddypress-contact-me] shortcode covered in Shortcode.