How to configure sending out emails from wordpress using WP-SMTP plugin

WP-SMTP software gives you a lot of options to send mail through many different services. In this article we will learn how to configure WP-SMTP

OPTION 1: send mail using SMTP Gmail

What are the benefits of using SMTP Gmail for WordPress?

In addition to the benefits that most providers wordpress hosting and ISP support, using SMTP Google also brings many benefits such as:

• Your mail deliverability has a much higher success rate
• No need to install server (if you are using VPS)
• Your mail is rarely marked as spam

How to use SMTP Google for free?

You need to have some preparation before you start using the SMTP service, including:

• Gmail or G Suite account
• Access the hosting control panel

Step 1: Get SMTP Google Mail Server configuration information

You can get the Google SMTP configuration information here:

• SMTP Server : smtp.gmail.com
• SMTP Username: Name full Gmail (email address), for example [email protected]
• SMTP Password: App password for your Gmail.
• SMTP Port: 587
• TLS/SSL: Required.

Step 2: Create an app password for your Gmail account

To create an application password for Gmail, you access https://myaccount.google.com/ and sign in with your Gmail account. Here first you need to turn on 2-step authentication

Then follow the instructions to turn on 2-step verification. After enabling 2-step verification, we proceed to create an application password

After clicking Create we will receive the application password and we need to save this password to use

Option 2: SMTP using Sendgrid's API

One of the very good 3rd party services is sendgrid, when you sign up for an account, you will be free to send 100 emails/day.

After successful registration, go to the dashboard and select

Settings / API key

Then give it a name and create a new API key.

Copy this API key code (note it is only displayed once) so copy and paste it into the WP-SMTP plugin in the following section and test.

The advantage of the API key is that you can customize the sender to be displayed instead of just gmail (however the server still shows the specs email sent from sendgrid if the user looks at the specs)

Install SMTP Plugins and Configure SMTP for WordPress

We will install and activate the WP Mail SMTP by WPForms plugin. If you do not know how to install plugins for wordpress, you can refer to the following article: Instructions for installing plugins for wordpress

After installing and Active plugins, we proceed to configure SMTP

Please fill in the following:

1. SMTP Host – fill smtp.gmail.com.
2. SMTP Port – The default SMTP Google is 465 for SSL and 587 for TSL.
3. Encryption – You should always use encryption. Choose it to match the port number you use.
4. Authentication - Choose On because SMTP authentication needs to be enabled.
5. Username – Your Gmail address.
6. Password – The Gmail app password you created in the previous step.

After the configuration is complete, click Save Settings to save settings. Next we will check if the mail delivery is successful or not.

In there Send To is the email to receive test mail. After filling in the information, click Send Test. If you receive a message like the picture, it is successful.