You add your conditions, hit Save, but as soon as the page reloads your conditions are gone. This almost always means the form data got truncated before it reached the server.

PHP limits how many fields it accepts in a single request through the max_input_vars setting (1000 by default). When another plugin adds a lot of extra fields to the Contact Form 7 editor, saving the form can push the total past this limit. PHP then silently drops the fields at the end of the request – which is exactly where the conditions live – so they never get saved.

Before touching your server config, check which plugins are adding fields to the Contact Form 7 editor. If you have plugins that tap into CF7 but that you don’t actually need, disabling them will lower the field count and might bring you back under the limit right away.

If you do need those plugins, the fix is to raise max_input_vars. Add this to your php.ini:

max_input_vars = 3000

If you can’t edit php.ini, try adding this to your .htaccess file instead:

php_value max_input_vars 3000

Not sure how to change this? Your hosting provider can do it for you in a minute – just ask them to raise max_input_vars.