gmail is a free email service that billions of people use to communicate personally or business. it’s secure, has an intuitive interface, and several extensions are available to complement your experience. Along with that, you can benefit from the functionality of the gmail smtp server.
smtp for gmail is a feature you can use to send email through different email clients using your gmail address or domain. To take advantage of this benefit, you just need to have your own free gmail account.
This article will cover the gmail smtp settings required to send free emails through email applications. we will also guide you on how to use gmail with your own domain.
what is smtp?
In simple terms, smtp (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is an email protocol used by mail servers to send emails over the internet. . Email protocols, on the other hand, are specific rules that organize the exchange of email between email clients and accounts. this particular protocol is used to handle sending email through an smtp server.
When the smtp server is running, email programs can connect and communicate with it. is the application that maintains the function of sending messages from the mail server.
what is gmail smtp server?
smtp server for gmail is a free smtp server that anyone around the world can use. allows you to manage email transactions from your gmail account through email clients or web applications. email clients are end-user mail applications. some of the most popular are thunderbird, outlook and mac mail.
gmail’s default smtp server name is smtp.gmail.com and if you use it, you can configure any external email application to send messages.
the email platform connects to the smtp server through certain email ports. an smtp port is an endpoint used to transmit emails over the internet. gmail secure smtp ports are 465 and 587.
what are the gmail smtp server settings?
To use the smtp server of your gmail address, you will need a combination of details. the gmail smtp settings you need are listed below.
- outgoing mail server (smtp): smtp.gmail.com
- use authentication: yes
- use secure connection: yes (tls or ssl depending on your mail client/website smtp plugin )
- username: your gmail address (for example, user@gmail.com)
- password: your gmail password
- gmail smtp port: 465 (ssl required) or 587 (tls required) )
Note: Be sure to replace “user@gmail.com” with your actual email address.
reasons to use gmail smtp to send emails
To use gmail smtp, you need to sign up for a free gmail account. You can configure the above settings in any email app if you already have an existing gmail account. this way you will be able to send messages using your gmail address from different devices.
Consider the information below if you’re wondering why you should use gmail smtp for your outgoing emails.
- manage emails across multiple devices
optionally you can send emails from your ms outlook or macmail app with your gmail account. In such case, you can follow these steps to manually configure outlook and manually configure mac mail respectively. It’s important to note that you must use the gmail smtp settings when following the steps in these guides.
- storage space
a free gmail account includes up to 15gb of storage per inbox, which is a considerable amount of space to use. Please note that this is a shared space between your gmail inbox, google drive and google photos.
- premium email service with google workspace
If you have the paid Google Workspace account (formerly known as gsuite), you can take advantage of more features and higher limits. This professional plan allows you to send up to 2,000 emails per 24 hours.
In addition, you can create email addresses for your domain with the paid gmail smtp server. instead of using your @gmail.com email, you can set up an @yourwebsite.com address to work with about google smtp.
You will need to modify your domain’s mx records for google workspace mail for this to happen. By doing this, your domain’s email service will be routed through Google’s mail servers.
- google security level
google is known for its sophisticated security implementations, and this also applies to its gmail service. you can use your smtp service on two secure ports: 465 and 578. port 465 is protected via ssl (secure sockets layer), and 578 works on tls (transport layer security).
- gmail search operators
gmail’s search operators allow you to search your inbox efficiently using various filtering commands. you can also combine different search commands to further filter the results. this functionality helps you find the message you are looking for more quickly and easily.
how to use gmail with my domain?
So far, we have talked about the advantages of using the gmail smtp server with your @gmail.com address. this solution is suitable for managing personal email correspondence and small websites.
However, if you have an online business, you should consider using a professional email address. Most web hosting providers include email hosting that allows you to create an email address for your domain name. Your hosted email service will also provide you with a webmail platform for email management.
Although these webmail applications may exist, gmail is much more flexible. Google also allows you to configure Gmail with your domain email address. this way you can go from webmail to gmail service and use it for your website communication line.
read on to learn the steps on how to use your own domain with gmail for free and manage your business email with it.
create a custom email address from your email host
First, you must have a hosted email account to set it up with gmail. otherwise you need to create one from your hosting control panel. siteground customers can create an email address from the site tools > email > accounts section.
On this page, select the domain you want to use from the select domain dropdown menu. after that, write the account name you have chosen for your email and create a strong password to put in the corresponding field. then simply click the create button and your email will be created.
Now that you have a professional email account, you need to obtain the server-required settings for Gmail. You can do this by clicking on the three dots Action menu and selecting Mail Configuration, then Manual Settings.
In the Manual settings window, you can see the settings you will need for your Gmail configuration.
enable pop for your gmail account
With your email settings in hand, you can now enable the pop3 service for your email in gmail. the post office protocol version 3 (pop3) is responsible for receiving emails. using it for your domain’s mail setup basically tells gmail to download all your messages from the hosting email server.
That way, you will be able to receive and store your company emails in your gmail. on the other hand, doing so will eventually reduce the storage space usage on your web hosting account.
To enable pop3 for your email account, log in to the www.gmail.com interface from your browser. then click the gear button in the upper right corner and choose “view all settings” to go to the settings page.
On that page, you can find the “check email from other accounts” section and click the “add an email account” button next to it.
A pop-up window will appear where you can start with the configuration by adding your email address.
The next step is to allow Gmail to “Import emails from your other account” using POP3.
Gmail will ask you to enter the POP settings for your domain-related email address on the following screen. Type in the following settings in the respective fields if you are a SiteGround client:
- username: myemail@domain.com
- password: the password you have chosen for this email address
- incoming server: mail.domain.com
- pop3 port: 995
Note: You should replace myemail@domain.com with your actual email address.
On this screen, you can choose to “leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server” and use a secure connection (ssl). When you have chosen the desired options, click “add account” and Google will confirm that you have added your email account.
Enable SMTP in Gmail for your email address
Once you see the confirmation, gmail will download all messages from your email host. in fact, every mail that arrives will go to your gmail inbox and a copy will remain on the server. you will be able to read them, however, you will not be able to reply yet as the smtp service is not enabled.
as you can see in the screenshot above, gmail will also ask if you want to be able to send emails from the same address. After confirming this, you will need to allow gmail to treat that other email address as your alias.
When that is done, Gmail will prompt you for your server’s SMTP settings, and you can use the ones below:
- outgoing server: mail.domain.com
- smtp port: 465
Verify your domain name with Gmail
The last step in this process is to verify your domain name by clicking the link you will receive in your @gmail.com inbox.
This will load a browser tab to confirm that Gmail can send emails from your domain-related email.
As soon as you confirm this, you are all set for managing your website emails with Gmail. Next time when you want to send a message from your domain email address, you can simply select it from the From drop-down menu.
To be sure that everything is set correctly, it will be best to try sending back and forth test mails. If there is a configuration issue, you may receive an error message, and you may need to review your settings in Gmail.
To conclude, you can use the gmail smtp server to configure different applications to send email from your @gmail.com address. Additionally, you can set up Gmail with your own email domain to manage your business correspondence. follow the steps above and you will achieve any of the settings successfully.