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Gmail or Server SMTP Setup

Gmail SMTP settings

SMTP Option Using Gmail

Question: What Are the Gmail SMTP Settings?

Answer: The Gmail SMTP server settings are for sending mail through Gmail from any email program or php mailer script. In short, using SMTP allows other email programs to see a valid header from a server which in turn allows the email you are sending to generally not go into peoples spam boxes.

Example of Options
Gmail SMTP server address: smtp.gmail.com
Gmail SMTP user name: Your full Gmail address (e.g. youremail@gmail.com)
Gmail SMTP password: Your Gmail password
Gmail SMTP SSL/TLS required: yes
Gmail SMTP port (SSL): 465
Gmail SMTP port (TLS): 587

If you are using your own personal email for a website but hosting it on gmail like spencer@mycompany.com and you are having connection problems login to your gmail account and go to this link and check the option for Less Secure Apps. https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps

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SMTP Option Using Your Server

Question: What Are my Server SMTP Settings?

Answer: Your Server SMTP settings are for sending mail through your own servers email program or php mailer script. This is convenient if you already have your email(s) setup on your server like Godaddy or Liquid Web, and NOT Gmail, Yahoo or some other email provider.

Example of Options
Server SMTP server address: host.examplehost.com
Server SMTP user name: Your full Email address (e.g. youremail@yourdomain.com)
Server SMTP password: Your Email password
Server SMTP SSL/TLS required: yes
Server SMTP port (SSL): 465
Server SMTP port (TLS): 587

 

 

Success and Error Message for SMTP & Default sendmail

Question: How do I know if I have connected to the SMTP server and it’s working?

Answer: Click the Send Test Email button on the settings page of the Design Approval System and if the SMTP connects you will receive a Green Success Message showing you the email address the test email was sent to.

Gmail SMTP settings

SMTP confirm email

 

IF you are NOT USING SMTP and want to make sure the emails will send out from our plugin just make sure the SMTP option is not checked and you will receive an email confirmation to the email address in the Company Email Address(required) input on the settings page.

Basic SendMail Send Test Email Example

Confirm Test Email

 

If it fails you will see a Red Message. This usually means you need to confirm the settings again or contact your host provider and explain the situation. Make sure and read the Problem and Solution paragraph below if you’re experiencing problems.

SMTP error notice

 

Problem and Solution

In our case we had a problem with our server not connecting to Gmail’s SMTP. We even installed the Easy WP SMTP plugin and tested that too and it did not work. So we put in a request to have the problem reviewed by our server techs and this was their reply.

Short Answer: It turns out the SMTP tweak was enabled in the firewall which was causing emails to be blocked. After disabling that the messages are now working.

Detailed Answer: Here is the setting description in the firewall documentation for your server:

‘Block outgoing SMTP except for root, exim and mailman (forces scripts/users to use the exim/sendmail binary instead of sockets access). This replaces the protection as WHM > Tweak Settings > SMTP Tweaks’

Basically this site uses SMTP to send via the user and so it was being blocked by this very setting for that reason.

The setting itself is as follows:

SMTP_BLOCK = “0”

That was set to 1 or enabled originally.

Also Important: make sure your existing gmail account is not already trying to use pop or some other configuration as that will cause gmail to NOT connect to the SMTP properly at times.

If you are still having problems try opening a new gmail account and try it again. That’s what we did to test this and it worked perfect. You know your existing account has configuration problems if it works with a new account.

 

In the End

There are many things that can go wrong with sending mail through SMTP and most of the problems come from permission issues caused by the server. In the end it’s probably going to save you a lot of time and stress by simply contacting your host provider and finding out if the SMTP_BLOCK is enabled or something else.