I am using mailgun.com for occassional mass-mailings. Would it be possible to also use it for sending personal emails from me and my wife? The specific problem is that email errors (e.g. "Recipient not found on the server") are only available in the mailgun console and I'd like for them to be received as an error emails sent back to the sender (as is the case with "standard" personal email services). Is it possible to set this up at mailgun.com?
Alternatively, is there a cheap (or even free) SMTP server available for sending emails from the custom domain I own?
(Note that RECEIVING emails to our domain is not a problem, we have that solved using email redirection on my domain.)
Detailed explanation of our setup and reasoning: Behind the scenes, we are both using personail gmail accounts (e.g. me#gmail.com and wife#gmail.com) but we don't advertise these anywhere and our "public" email addresses are me#mydomain.com and wife#mydomain.com. Mydomain.com uses Cloudflare email redirection to redirect our incoming emails back to our Gmail inboxes. We used "Send mail as" GMail feature to send emails as "me#mydomain.com" and "wife#mydomain.com" through smtp.gmail.com but this solution requires us to have "Less secure apps" enabled on our Google accounts and Google seems to be phasing this solution out. The fact that our "real" Gmail addresses are visible in the email headers is not a problem for us.
Originally, we've used free "legacy" Google Workspace accounts on mydomain.com but those are now also being phased out by Google. So we are looking for a SMTP server.
Answering my own question:
I have found that smtp2go.com (which provides very similar services to mailgun.com) provides this option. Your SMTP account can be configured (in the "Advanced" tab) so that bounced email reports are delivered back to the sender's mailbox (or to different mailbox). Additionally, smtp2go's services are free if you send less than 1000 emails monthly so this seems like perfect solution to my problem.
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When switching to cloudflare I cannot send domain email via gmail.
I have verified the MX records are exact copy in cloudflare as compaired with hositng provider.
I have gmail setup to send and receive mail for my x-domain. However when switchign NS to cloudflare and the C/F zone file is confirmed correct I cannot send mail. Only receive when in gmail.
I have seen many people all over google mention this. But no answers
One idea.
My current webhost with cPanel and litespeed server has mail spam filter software "spamassassin" I think.
Could this be the issue
I have a server on OVH and I'm trying to send some mail to my Gmail address using sendmail.
I installed sendmail with apt-get on debian, and echo "Subject: test" | /usr/sbin/sendmail -v mymail#gmail.com works. However Gmail puts the mail in the spam folder and says the mail is not authenticated.
I have no knowledge of how email works and from what I've seen I could use SPF or DKIM to provide authentication, but it seems it requires admin access to ovh DNS servers.
What would be the easiest way, using only admin access to the server that sends mails, to make sure emails sent from it are not marked as spam ?
Thanks
There are no easy way. That's the simple answer.
Google Mail is fighting spam every second, every day, all year. To get mail delivered directly to the inbox requires time and patience and there are no shortcuts. If there where, spammers would have it way to easy!
You are very correct that Google's SMTP servers will ask you to beef up your SMTP mail headers to include better authentication and security. There's no way around it if you want to be on good terms with Google's SMTP servers.
Here is a list of things to consider
SPF (Must have, also to defend spam sent in your name)
DKIM (Must have, this is somewhat a step up from SPF)
ESMTP (Google likes it when you talk to them encrypted)
Bulk headers (Use them if it's bulk, no reason to lie!)
Unsubscribe headers (Use them if you are sending out maillist content)
SMTP relay's with nice Senderscores (Easy access to the inbox, but cost)
SMTP relay's with good reputation (Easy access to the inbox, but cost)
Feedback loop headers/setup (If you send large amount of mails)
Only use "warmed up" SMTP relay servers (Mostly used by bulk senders)
Reverse DNS to match HELO/HELO (Mismatch can make problems)
Static IP (It's a given)
As you can see it's no simple task to "just" send an email to Google and expect it to be passed along to the users Inbox without getting targeted as spam.
Most of the options above requires extensive server knowlagde or that your hosting provider supports it. You need to have access to change your own DNS records but also the SMTP server that you send your mail from needs to be setup with the things in advance.
Now to the:
"How to send emails to Google Mail that always land in the inbox for dummies"
Well you basically buy your way into the inbox. Use SMTP services like Mailchimp, Amazon AWS-SMS (Simple Mail Service) many if not all of these services have already setup DKIM, SPF and are on good terms with Google. They do however have many rules and what and what not to do so if you don't follow the rules they will close your account right away.
We have bought the google apps account for the domain www.amarramesh.com hosted by bluehost.com
As per the google apps suggestion, we altered the CNAME records in bluehost for the domain www.amarramesh.com to sync with google apps.
There is an issue when I send the mail through a PHP file stored in my Bluehost server. I tested the email quality through mail-tester.com and it says the DKIM signature is not valid because in the DKIM signature selector = "default" and suggests I should change to "google.domainkey". Due to this, many of the emails sent from the server are going into people's spam boxes. How do I make this change? This problem doesn't happen when email is sent from Gmail.
I have tried Php-mailer and it worked for some time but Bluehost has now blocked it.
Why do you want to send mail from another host if you're using GoogleApps?
DKIM's purpose is to allow remote hosts to authenticate that your mail was really sent by the server(s) you permit to send them. This prevents a spammer from forging your domain name on spam he is sending out. If it wasn't bounced off of servers you authorized in your DKIM DNS record, remote mail servers won't deliver it -- or maybe send it to the spam folder (provided they look at the DKIM header and DNS record).
It does this by putting a private key encrypted header on the mail, and the public key to decrypt it on the DNS record. If it can be decrypted successfully, then it is assumed to be legit (because the sender knew the private key).
This might help if you want to enable mail being sent from both hosts.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/tzink/2013/04/26/how-to-set-up-your-dkim-records-if-you-are-outsourcing-some-or-all-of-your-email/
Recently I moved my site to GCE and now emails are not being sent. I send them using gmail's smtp server, through the port 465.
A simple google search points to this article, in which they say that I must use a third party solution like SendGrid.
The weird thing is, I can send regular emails. I was testing my site and I am able to send a simple email with "Hello world" in the message body. But the moment I add a link (URL address) to the body message, the email is not sent.
Is this an expected behaviour? Is there a work around?
I think it's dumb for Google to not allow sending emails even though its own Gmail servers.
Perhaps there is some confusion here. "Despite" of what they say...
Look at their article on Sending Email from an Instance and I quote:
"Google Compute Engine does not allow outbound connections on ports
25, 465, and 587 but you can still set up your instances to send mail
through ports 587 and 465 using servers provided through partner
services, such as SendGrid."
They clearly state that you CAN do it.
Also, if you're authenticating with your Google Account to send via smtp.gmail.com, you're authenticating with a username and password just like any standard email client would. So why would that not be allowed? You're basically connecting as an email client.
On another note, your issues with links were related to the quality of the message therefore being marked as spam (GCE wasn't causing any problems.) by Gmail, as I suspected in my previous comment. You're mainly using Gmail here, and not really any issues directly related to GCE.
I hope this clarifies things a little.
Apparently Google Cloud (despite of what they claim) does allow smtp traffic. I added the firewall exception of the port tcp:465 for all IP addresses.
Additionally, emails containing links were being sent to the spam box, but just on my email account. I sent it to another account and it worked just fine.
[Edit]
GCE had nothing to do with the links problem. It was the poor design of my email content that caused it to go to the spam folder.
The solution was already there. Open the right firewall ports and you're good to go.
I spent weeks on researching the net on wich solution should I use in order to correctly send emails from my websites hosted on shared hosting accounts, but the more I read - the more confused I get.
So this is my situation!
I have among others, an ecommerce website built on OpenCart, on a shared hosting account and a few email addresses in cPanel, like sales#mydomain.com, newsletter#mydomain.com, contact#mydomain.com, etc. These email accounts are also accessible via roundCube by the user at email.mydomain.com and via IMAP\SMTP on their email clients like Thunderbird.
The website has these email addresses set up and it uses (at leas Opencart does) php mail() to send emails for events (new order, contact, quote, etc).
Since last year or so, providers like Yahoo keeps banning the server's IP address and emails get bounced back with failure messages, Gmail recipients get them in Spam folder, etc. I almost monthly ask my hosting provider to change IP address, ask Yahoo or spam services to unblock the IP address, do tests, etc and I don't even have a large number of emails going, like 100 per month, most of them are Ask for a quote wich are plain text messages.
In other words, it isn't working.
What I am looking for what solution should I use to send emails from websites hosted on shared accounts, that is transactional emails and newsletter emails without upsetting Yahoo,Google,etc. subdomains? external smtp service? configure email accounts in a specific way? What do you guys use ?
If you are able to add extensions to Opencart on your shared host, you may want to consider adding the phpmailer extension (http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension/info&extension_id=3932). This will enable you to send all outgoing mail from Opencart via phpmailer, which can be setup to send mail through a remote SMTP relay (such as smtp.gmail.com, sendgrid, or some other remote SMTP relay). A reputable remote SMTP relay will probably be less likely to be blacklisted than your host's SMTP relay that the php mail() command is currently using.