Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with smtp

Is there a good SMTP service to send bulk emails (or other solution?)

ManInSuit — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 07:33:13 -0800

Is there a good SMTP service to send bulk emails (or another good solution for sending bulk emails, using the tools I already have, rather than a service like Mailchimp?) I have a couple of email lists I use to promote local events. The lists are in the range of 2000 to 3000 people. I've been assembling the names on these lists for several years, through a mix of different ways: Sometimes people sign up on a paper email list at events, sometimes they email and ask to be on the lists.

Everyone who is on the lists asked to be on them, and unsub requests are, of course, respected quickly.

I send emails to these lists in a couple of ways: Sometimes just using my regular email client (I use Thunderbird, and my email provider is Fastmail). More often, I use a script I wrote a very long time ago in ColdFusion, that is hosted at The Small Business Authority (formerly Crystaltech.)

The thing is, most ISPs are not set up to encourage people to send 2000 or 3000 emails in a short period of time: They throttle the sending, or in some cases, temporarily shut down your account if you send too many messages.

I tried Mailchimp, and it's a great service, but it requires, at least for now, too many changes in how I do things: It has its own list management, its own rules about how to send, etc. Re-arranging all my lists to happen in Mailchimp is a lot of work that I'd rather not do, at least for now.

I'm wondering if there is some SMTP service that I can sign up for that will allow me to send 2000 - 3000 emails without causing a lot of hassles. Something where I could allow be to continue to use my existing tools, without stressing the SMTP servers at my regular email provider, or web host.

Does anyone have any recommendations for services like this? There are plenty out there, but it's really hard to judge which ones are good. Some criteria I'm looking for:

1) Ideally, a very simple solution that does not require a lot of change to how I already do things.
2) Ideally, not too expensive (less than $50 a month, I'm hoping)
3) A reasonably reputable and reliable company to deal with. (This is the hardest thing to judge on my own, and why I'm asking the green rather than just googling).
4) If the solution could help a bit with list management, deleting addresses that bounce, reducing the percentage of messages that get tagged as spam, that would be great, but not totally necessary.

Any help much appreciated. Thanks!

Is there a email service that doesn't require SSL?

ridogi — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:36:27 -0800

Is there a email service that doesn't require SSL? I need an email account to for SMTP from various devices (Xerox printers, SonicWalls, Retrospect 9, etc) for sending out status emails and such. Many times these devices won't accept SSL, so only non SSL mail on port 25 will work. I used to use fastmail.fm but they require SSL now. I've used gmx.com but they keep resetting the password. Gmail doesn't work. Are there any good choices?

I would also need the account to not expire or become inactive if I'm not using it for anything other than sending from these devices. These devices are at various locations so it should not care if multiple IP addresses are used to access it.

Paid options are preferred.

Fast Flatbed Scanner with SMTP/Exchange integration

tahirh — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 14:42:40 -0800

I am looking for a Fast Flatbed SMTP/Exchange integrated Scanner. It should work as a stand-alone device i.e. networkable (so not attached to a PC) and email scans ('scan to email' so digital copies of receipts can go into an expense system) and be easy to use. It should have SMTP/Exchange/AD integration completely so it should be possible to Email to multiple email addressess if necessary. Money is not an issue but it should have fast and responsive scan times. I am really looking for recommendations especially from people with experience with enterprise ready Flatbed scanners in SME business environments. Something sturdy and reliable. Thank you.

How to ask client's IT team for SMTP access

circular — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:54:21 -0800

I'm running software on a client's server that needs to send email reports. It typically uses sendmail, but we switched the DNS over to the client's own special MX records instead of the local mail exchanger. My software can use SMTP--what do I need to know in order to ask the client's IT guy for access without looking like a complete idiot? Does the IT guy need to set up some sort of special account for me, or just hand over the SMTP credentials? Will he be willing to do so? (The software is completely above-board and needs to send email)

I've only ever used sendmail and not this SMTP stuff through a client's IT services before. Of course, I've used my own SMTP before, but this is a relatively large institution. I don't want to commit any gaffes...thanks!

(And of course, I hope this is just stupid simple and is done every day)

I want my emails to work

saeculorum — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:57:10 -0800

How do I pick a web hosting service that has an email server that is not blacklisted? I've been using a deep-discount web hosting service (I don't think the name is relevant and I don't want to be accused of promotion) for hosting a few assorted files, a single web page, and hosting my email needs for a single domain name I own. In short, I don't have particularly challenging demands for a provider. About five years ago, I picked one solely based on price. Recently, my emails have been increasingly returned - or worse, simply not acknowledged at all by the receiving server - due to the host service's email servers being on spam blacklists. The apparent reason recently has been hosting trojan spamming PHP scripts. I am annoyed by having emails returned and am particularly concerned about unacknowledged emails and want to switch providers. However, I have no idea how to pick a provider that provides un-blacklisted email service.

Does anyone have recommendations on a low-price (with low-demand) hosting service that satisfies this desire? Alternatively, are there un-blacklisted SMTP servers I can "rent" for sending email while still using my provider for receiving emails? I have a strong desire not to have the email address changed on sent emails (like Gmail SMTP servers do) and not to have any advertising appended to the end of the email.

Looking for an SMTP server that I can use from anywhere?

bicyclefish — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 22:37:59 -0800

What's the best SMTP server or relay that will let me send e-mail from anywhere? I recently moved from an ISP that offered authenticated SMTP (Rogers, whose technical service was good but whose customer service left my blood boiling) to a small ISP whose SMTP only allows me to send mail while I'm on their network. This sucks, since - despite being self-employed - I'm out of the house a lot. Now, I'm stuck using webmail.

Also, for historical reasons, my e-mail is hosted at another small ISP shop. They don't offer a useful SMTP solution either. (They have one, but it's flaky, relying on authenticating your IP based on whether you'd checked your mail from it in the last 10 minutes, etc.) No Gmail for me.

What I want is an authenticated SMTP server whose login info I can plug into my Mail client and my iPhone, that will allow me to send mail from anywhere from my existing address, no fuss and no muss.

I see that such services exist on this Internet thing. Does anyone have recommendations on which might be best? Reliable options at the lowest price are the most sought after. Thanks!

Any SMTP email providers which allow for a low volume of legitimate 'spoofed' email?

cowbellemoo — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:59:13 -0800

Are there any low-volume SMTP email relay services which allow the sending of 'spoofed' emails for valid site purposes (like a 'forward to a friend' feature)? The site I just inherited is now hosted on AWS' EC2, which is understandably strict about outgoing SMTP traffic. However, even their add-on email service requires verification of any "from" address used in an email. The site's "forward to a friend" feature sends spoofed emails through a website form, so when the recipient replies to the message, it goes to the address that the forwarder gave to the web form. I figure my options are:

1. Find a less-restrictive SMTP provider that allows for a low volume (a few dozen a day) of legitimate spoofed emails.

2. Re-implement the feature using a static site-specific address (friend-forwards@mysite.com).

SMTP, Mail.app . and MSN

lakerk — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 19:24:42 -0800

What are the mail server settings for Windows MSN web based mail account? Using Mail.app in Snow Leopard and am able to receive incoming email, but the outgoing smtp server settings just suddenly stopped working. It's only more confusing because of hotmail versus windows live mail versus msn mail .

They all funnel into the same thing but I'm not sure the server addresses are the same.

My google fu is failing.

I need the incoming and outgoing mail server settings for a @msn email address. Thanks!

Any Mail.app tips would be appreciated as well.

Email newsletter software for 4500 person college list

deansfurniture5 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:13:47 -0800

Is there a free app to mail out an email newsletter to ~4500 people using an existing SMTP server? I run an email newsletter at my school, and every week we need to send it out to about 4500 people. I used to use a program called CustomMailer, but it's pretty terrible, so I'd like to move to something better. It'd be best to have something that's free, since all it's needed is to send the emails via our school's SMTP server.

HTML email support is a plus, but not completely necessary. I'd like this to be relatively easy to use, so that when I hand it off to someone else to do, they'll be able to figure it out.

I've considered just writing my own app to do this, but it'd be nicer to use something that already exists. Looking at past questions that have been answered, nothing seems to really fit the bill

Anyone have any experience with something like this?

Postfix magician needed. Inquire within.

cmm — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:03:44 -0800

Postfix Setup: I have an internal postfix server that is relaying mail for our test environment. I never want this server to send email to the world at large. I want the email to end up in a single mailbox. I'm not a sysadmin, but I play one on TV.

I have a test environment that relays email off postfix. Some of the addresses are good internal addresses that I want to relay. But some of them are production customer addresses that I never in a million years want to send email to.

I was thinking there must be some postfix juju I can use to make it so that internal addresses are delivered normally (*@mydomain.net), but anything else is deemed external and will just be filtered to one local mailbox. Then I could setup a web mail program to access this mailbox so people can validate test results.

Can anyone help with the necessary postfix magic? I have full access to all configuration on the server.

For webmail, what should I use? squirrelmail? horde?

Thanks, hive mind.

How not to store plaintext passwords?

bottlebrushtree — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:56:51 -0800

Best practices for storing OracleDB/mysql/ldap/smtp/etc... system passwords for enterprise application integration use? I'm working with a vendor who currently is storing passwords in plain text in configuration files.

If you've ever configured Wordpress you are familiar with how your mysql password gets placed in plain text in the wp-config.php file.
This vendor is doing a similar thing for mysql, ldap, smtp, etc...

This has made some people uncomfortable.

I'd like some suggestions for best practices to minimize the use of passwords in plaintext (or trivially encoded text) in text configuration files.

These passwords are being used to drive external databases, ldap auth, smtp sending, etc...

Their Java / Tomcat application is expected to be running 24/7 as a Server. This particular instance will be on Windows Server 2003 though Linux is also supported.

It would be nice if it would be possible to have unattended restarting of the application without a user having to enter in a master password, but if that is the only solution we may be comfortable with it.

Some background:

The application uses LDAP to authenticate users (and hence has the LDAP system password in a configuration file)

The application stores its data in a SQL database (Oracle in this case, though they also support mysql. We have to stay on Oracle)

The application sends mail using SMTP

Thanks.

How can I use my host's SMTP to send mail when I have my address set to forward incoming mail?

churl — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:18:04 -0800

How can I use my name@my-domain.com email address to send email, if the same address is set to forward incoming mail to another address? I am using Mac OS 10.5, Mail.app, and an iPhone.

I have a site and domain name -- let's say it's my-domain.com -- hosted by 1and1.com. I use name@my-domain.com as my primary email address, but I have set my host to forward incoming email at that address to a MobileMe account: name@me.com. I want to continue to give out name@my-domain.com as my email address. I want to, for the time being, continue to use MobileMe (name@me.com) for my actual mailbox.

The rub is, because mail that's sent to name@my-domain.com is currently forwarding to name@me.com, any replies I send come from name@me.com. I have tried to set up Mail.app to use my web host's outgoing SMTP server (smtp.1and1.com), using the settings they describe (Port 25, Password authentication, etc), but it does not work; it gives the error "The server stmp.1and1.com cannot be contacted on port 25." I expect this is because I don't have a real "mailbox" set up with the host using that email address, only a forwarder.

So the question: is there any way to have my outgoing mail come from name@my-domain.com? For example, is there maybe a way to set up a @my-domain.com mailbox and have MobileMe go out and pull new messages into my @me.com address? Or can I somehow set up Mail.app to use my host 1and1's SMTP server to send mail, when the same email address is set to forward incoming mail? Or is there another service I can use to make this work?

Cheers, and thanks in advance.

gmail through SMTP without showing local IP to recipient?

nolnar — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:24:31 -0800

when emailing from the gmail web interface then the users local IP is not included in the message source. But when emailing from gmail via SMTP ( smtp.gmail.com ) then the local IP is included in the source. Can I somehow stop that from happening? Scenario: Someone wants to run a blog anonymously but still use a gmail adress for receiving email from readers and replying to such emails.

Can that be done using gmail through SMTP (using thunderbird or some similar program on the local computer) WITHOUT the email recipient getting the IP number of the local computer?

I did some testing. When emailing from the gmail web interface then the users local IP is not included in the message source. But When emailing from gmail via SMTP ( smtp.gmail.com ) then the local IP is included in the source. Can I somehow stop that from happening?

(note: in this thread http://ask.metafilter.com/30539/anonymize-email someone claims that gmail through SMTP strips identifying IP adresses but when testing I found that to not be the case)

(note2: I'm only asking for some way go achieve weak anonymity. If something illegal is done then authorities can probably still request the sender ip from gmail. But that is no problem because the actual scenario involves nothing illegal)

You down with S-M-T-P? Yeah, you know me!

ThFullEffect — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:48:14 -0800

How do I set up an outbound SMTP server on MS Server 2003? My team at work has been given the task of getting our MS Server 2003 box to send out emails. I have no idea how to do this.

All of my googling gives me instructions on how to set up SMTP with exchange, or some variance thereof. I don't need to receive emails, just send them. We're intending to use python and smtplib to create and send the email using variables from a database that we are creating. We toyed with the idea of using godaddy's SMTP relay, but it only gives you 250 relays per day for obvious reasons.

The question is how does a non-spammer send out between 250-700 emails per day using what I have at my disposal?

Note: Every email sent is opt-in and offers the recipient a coupon targeted towards an item that they have expressed interest in.

You haven't got mail

special-k — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:29:02 -0800

How do I find a working smtp server when I am at a coffee shop? I use Thunderbird for all my work email and need the useable smtp server to send mail. Every time I visit a new coffee shop, I have to first look up the IP on whatsmyip.com, then figure out who the ISP is and guess the smtp server. I usually try a couple (mail.whatever.com or smtp.whatever.com) and if I am lucky it will just work.

But more often than not, I am asked for a username/password. This is very frustrating because I don't subscribe to that ISP. I have tried using gmail as my smtp server (using my google username/pass) and it works for a little while before google throws up error messages (smtp server did not respond or denied access). Same with my work smtp server (even when I check the username box, it still throws up an error after 2-3 emails).

I understand that these are safeguards against spammers but it's very annoying (especially since I will be working remotely from coffee shops for the next two months). Does anyone have a workaround?

Why would email and MSN Messenger work, but web browsing not?

lukeo05 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:24:04 -0800

Why would email and MSN Messenger work, but web browsing not? I got a phone call from a disgruntled mother, wondering why her colleagues home computer will access her email (via Outlook) and be able to use MSN Messenger, but cannot connect to the internet to browse. I'm sure if I sat down at the computer I would figure it out with trial and error, but that's not possible, so I am trying to think of a load of different suggestions of what to try to fix this issue...

Microsoft Exchange Server for Epsilon Semi-Morons?

loquacious — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:39:04 -0800

How do I set up Microsoft Exchange (or Outlook) Server for a small office? I'm providing basic knuckle-dragger tech support for a small office, and one of the things they want to implement and that I want to provide eventually is an Exchange or Outlook server.

Where do I begin? What should I watch out for? What about security issues?

I will be using Server 2003 and a primarily XP client base.

Solution May Take Patience

B(oYo)BIES — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:44:23 -0800

Our company has been using Gmail’s SMTP servers without issue for the last couple years for sending our ecommerce clients emails that read “A customer has placed an online order on your web site. To access it go to https://www.sometime.com/.” - Well, this week Gmail started blocking our outgoing messages as spam. Every time we send one of these emails, or anything similar to it, we get the following response from Gmail:
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

clientsemailaddress@isp.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: Message rejected. See http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=69585 for more information.

This has been an issue for a lot of people as of late. We don’t have time to hope Gmail fixes their false positives issue, and need another solution ASAP. We send roughly 200 to 250 emails a day, to one recipient per email. We need a solution that isn’t going to blacklist us as spam before the message even leaves (Gmail) and isn’t going to be hit as spam when it hits the client’s inbox.

We have started looking into other solutions like Send Blaster and
Secure SMTP - any thoughts on these services, or perhaps a better service?

Ideas? Suggestions? Anything useful that may help us? Thank you in advanced.

Postfix/Altermime vs. Google Apps

doomtop — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:43:04 -0800

E-mail disclaimers: Postfix/Altermime setup works great except when used as an SMTP outbound gateway for Google Apps it strips the HTML version of the disclaimer. So I have finally got Postfix running the way I'd like. I'm using Altermime to automatically attach a disclaimer to the footer of every e-mail sent through it.

Altermime includes a plaintext and an html version of the disclaimer.

Whenever I send an e-mail through Postfix using a mail client (such as Outlook, etc.) the disclaimer works perfectly. It includes the plaintext version and if you view the message in html it includes the html version.

However, when I set up my Google Apps for Domains system to use the Postfix server as the "Outbound Gateway" it somehow causes the html version of the disclaimer to be stripped from the message. So the recipient gets the disclaimer in plaintext view, but if they view it in html there is no disclaimer whatsoever.

I can't seem to figure out where why how this is happening?!@?!

Automatically attach a footer to e-mail sent through Sendmail SMTP?

doomtop — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:12:11 -0800

Automatically attach a footer to e-mail sent through Sendmail SMTP? Looking documentation on how to automatically attach a customized footer to any e-mail relayed through my Sendmail server. Or any other SMTP server for that matter. Please help!

Automatically attach footer advertising to e-mail via SMTP gateway

doomtop — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:09:40 -0800

Automatically attach footer advertising to e-mail via SMTP gateway I'm looking for a way to automatically attach some copy to the footer of e-mail that gets sent out from our e-mail hosting service. We use Google Apps for ISP and give Google Apps accounts to our customers under our own domain name. I'd like to pay for a service that lets me set an SMTP gateway for our Google Apps account that automatically attaches the footer text to any e-mail sent out from within our system.

Does anyone know of a service that offers this or anything like this??

Why won't IIS send my email?

derbs — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:50:54 -0800

Seemingly random undeliverable email using IIS's built in SMTP server. Please hope me! Hello everyone
I have a windows server 2003 dedicated machine, which randomly fails to send email. I've been using CDO for years now, and have never come across such an annoying problem, i've literally spent days trying to fix this problem!!

Basically i have a website hosted there, with a really simple CDO send script. It look like this:

--------------------------------------------



for x = 1 to Request.Form.count()

  themessage=themessage & Request.Form.key(x) & vbcrlf

  themessage=themessage & Request.Form.item(x) & vbcrlf & vbcrlf

next





Set MailMessage = server.createobject("CDO.message")

MailMessage.to = "info@flexytron.com"

MailMessage.from = "info@flexytron.com"

MailMessage.subject = "RFQ from website"

MailMessage.textbody = themessage

MailMessage.send

--------------------------------------------

Now about 50% of these emails come through.

The rest give me a 5.3.5 "Delivery to the following recipients failed (info@flexytron.com)

The from address in the bounce email is given as postmaster@DSVR003430.livemail.co.uk

Reporting-MTA: dns;flexyweb.co.uk
Received-From-MTA: dns;DSVR003430
Arrival-Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 14:29:42 +0000
Final-Recipient: rfc822;info@flexytron.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.3.5

I can't understand why this is happening. Can anyone work out why my email won't send? It's driving me completely spare, especially as one minute it works, and the next it doesn't!
Thanks a lot

How to forward email to a script

TimeTravelSpeed — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:53:29 -0800

How can I set up a system that forwards email to a script given that port 25 is Cox-blocked on my home connection? Use a web host? Bypass Cox somehow? I'm developing an app which requires email-to-script forwarding. My thoughts are either to get an account with a web host that has that capability, or to set up my own SMTP server.

To do it at home, I'd need a way to bypass my ISP's port 25 block. If I need to use a web host, I'd like it to be cheap, free, or with 1and1.com since I have an account with them already.

I'd prefer not to use cron jobs since I want the forwarding to be immediate. Any recommendations?

UK Text Messaging to US E-Mail?

Dreama — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:53:52 -0800

Do UK wireless phone providers generally permit text messaging to an e-mail address, rather than another wireless phone? I'm in the US, and my brother and my friend have both relocated to the UK. Both have taken to sending me text messages; unfortunately, international messages are more than three times as costly for me (both to send and receive) as it is for them. And worse, cell reception is very spotty in my house, so when I'm home (as I most often am) a text message might not come through for an hour or two after its sent, just depending on when my phone decides to pick up a signal. E-mail is a much more reliable way to reach me quickly. For me, text-to-email is as simple as putting an e-mail address rather than phone number in the "to" field. Is this functionality common amongst UK carriers?

Barring that, is there any service like K7 that will provide a phone number that can receive text messages and deliver them to my e-mail, that I can use as a go-between service?

(Why am I asking here rather than asking my brother or my friend? Because they're both allergic to RTFM and only understand the very basics of how their very fancy "foreign" phones work. If I can go to them and say "do this" they'll do it, but I don't want to bother if it'll "break" something, as far as they're concerned.)

Can I safely block port 25 on my server?

ajbattrick — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:55:34 -0800

Can I block port 25 or not? I'm working on the firewall of a public facing webserver at the moment, and want to block TCP port 25 (SMTP) to incoming traffic as I'm seeing many connections that I just don't want to accept. The server does not handle any incoming email so this would usually be a no-brainer, just block and forget about it.

However, the server is sending around 25000 emails to a distribution list, two or three times a week. I am sure that AOL, or some other big email providers will block emails coming from servers that do not have port 25 open.

I don't want to just block it to test this and have a load of failed emails to deal with.

Do you know if I need to leave port 25 open or not?