Ambiguous column label

Thanks for reporting this! Could you please share the screenshot of the email using a screenshot-sharing tool like Prnt.sc, Awesome Screenshot, or any other online tool? The screenshot seems to be missing from your report.

Hi @thomsus,

Thanks for sharing the screenshot!

This is WooCommerce’s default behaviour. The “Expires” column refers to download access, so “Never” means the downloadable file has no expiry date. It does not indicate the membership’s expiry.

I agree that the heading can be confusing in this context. You can rename it to “Download expiry date” using the woocommerce_email_downloads_columns filter by changing the download-expires column label.

Thanks!

Hi @thomsus,

That’s a completely valid point! When a downloadable file is attached to a time-limited membership or subscription, seeing “Expires: Never” can definitely be confusing at first glance.

Just to clarify, I’m a community volunteer here on the forums rather than a WooCommerce core developer, so I can’t modify the plugin’s core code directly.

WooCommerce keeps the default column header short (“Expires”) because it sits under the “Downloads” heading, which helps prevent narrow email tables from wrapping awkwardly on mobile screens, and changing default strings in Core also resets existing translations across dozens of languages. Because Core doesn’t know when another plugin (like a membership tool) has its own expiration workflow, it relies on filters so store owners or third-party plugins can tailor those labels as needed.

How to suggest this change for everyone: To have the WooCommerce team review this as a core UX improvement, you can submit it in either of two places:

• Feature Request Board: https://woocommerce.com/feature-requests/woocommerce/
• WooCommerce GitHub (Enhancement Issue): https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/new/choose

Quick fix for your site in the meantime: If you want to update the wording right away without waiting on a core update, you can add this snippet via the free Code Snippets plugin or your child theme’s functions.php (this updates both the email and the My Account → Downloads page):

add_filter( 'woocommerce_email_downloads_columns', 'custom_rename_download_expires_column' );
add_filter( 'woocommerce_account_downloads_columns', 'custom_rename_download_expires_column' );

function custom_rename_download_expires_column( $columns ) {
    if ( isset( $columns['download-expires'] ) ) {
        $columns['download-expires'] = __( 'Download expire date', 'woocommerce' );
    }
    return $columns;
}

Hope this helps!

Thanks!