I was trying to create a SMTP server using nodejs module "smtp-server" and referred this: http://nodemailer.com/extras/smtp-server/. When I tried to send mail using nodemailer to server it went properly but when I tried to send mail to gmail account it was never receiver there.
I set up dkim and SPF for my smtp server and checked them using online checkers and my code is same as before as I mentioned here: Could not send mail to users email using my smtp server on website
Assumption:
For sending mail to gmail account I assumed that server automatically redirects mail to gmail server if I put my gmail account in "to:" section of message. Later I studied multiple article and found that there is some thing like outbounding which is used to redirect mail to other server. Kindly tell me how can I set it up for smtp-server module.
I don't have any technical problems, but I have a question that I would like to be answered out of curiosity.
Here is my current understanding of how email works:
One of the privileges of having your own domain is that you can hook it up to IMAP/POP3/SMTP servers and use them to send and receive messages to and from "anyone#yourdomain.com". With spam being such a problem, however, the SMTP server that you use to send messages must add a bunch of headers (DKIM, SPF, etc) to each message that you send in order to prove that the SMTP server has the authority to send emails from that domain. The receiving SMTP server can cross-check those headers with DNS records that it finds to verify the legitimacy of the email message.
So if you want to send emails with your domain cheaply, you can use Gmail's "Send Mail As" feature. I followed this help article to get mine working: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157
Note: I unchecked the "Treat as an alias" option during the setup.
But wait... no additional DNS configuration required? I have my domain registered with Cloudflare, and there are no entries related to Google in there.
There is this step in the setup process:
But it seems that this only for Google to prevent you from using their servers to send spam. What is stopping Google from impersonating any email address they want? Why do receiving SMTP servers trust an email from "anyone#yourdomain.com" if Google's SMTP servers have no way of adding legitimate SPF/DKIM headers?
The short answer is that nothing prevents Google from doing this, and that DMARC was created for exactly this case.
There is nothing that stops Google from impersonating any domain. However, there are things receivers can (and should) do when they receive an email which isn't send from the server indicated in the From: field.
Try sending an email from the alias you just added to a different #gmail.com inbox. You will see that it says via gmail.com behind the sender email address. But other email receivers might do more: flag this message with red exclamation marks and scam warnings, throw it into spam or even deny receiving it completely. Gmail probably has some hardcoded trust, but try doing this from your own SMTP server and the above will very likely happen.
As you say in your question, you can authorize your emails by marking gmail.com as an authorized sender with SPF (which protects against forging from other domains, but doesn't stop Google), or even sign your emails with DKIM (not possible from Gmail UI, but you can do this in some email clients or send email with a custom Python script like me; Google can't do this without knowing the key).
However, that only solves one side of the problem – authorizing legitimate email messages. But what if an SMTP server still receives an unverified email? What if they have previously received an email from the same sender which was DKIM signed? What if DKIM passes, but SPF fails?
Because the behavior in that case is largely unspecified, and also the sender wants to check if their DKIM/SPF authorizations are actually working, and if anyone is attempting to spoof them, another standard was created: DMARC. It introduces another DNS TXT record where you can say what checks are required to pass, what to do if they fail, and also what basic analytics should the receivers report to the owner of the domain.
Of all webmail client providers, Google's Send mail as is actually the most well-implemented for a variety of reasons.
First of all, how it works is not different from when you set up POP3 or IMAP using a mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird. You have to specify the domain and port where you receive emails from, and the domain and port where you send emails from. For example, Google's incoming and outgoing servers for IMAP are as follows:
imap.gmail.com:993
smtp.gmail.com:465
The Send mail as feature is a partial implementation of that. It only implements the outgoing part.
How mail clients like Outlook and Thunderbird send emails, is basically that it sends the email to the outgoing mail server, and the outgoing mail server then sends the email. Usually, outgoing mail servers will require some sort of authentication, and will allow authenticated users to only send from specific email addresses.
Gmail works the same way. The outgoing mail server is the one that has to pass the SPF and DKIM tests, not Google's servers.
No other webmail clients do this. Hotmail used to do this, but they recently removed the feature. Now, the option is very difficult to find, and they just rewrite your FROM address and sends your email from Hotmail's SMTP server, which creates delivery problems.
They don't provide you with the option to send emails from another SMTP server, because this allows people to very easily set up virtual mail servers that can send emails under a domain of your choice, but use say a typical free Hotmail account to store incoming mails. This takes away business from their paid services, because both Hotmail and Gmail sell the option to host your company emails. I'm sure Google also knows about this, but it is really awesome of them to still keep the option available to free Gmail users.
If you want to learn more about virtual email servers, you can check out this article here: https://blog.terresquall.com/2022/01/setting-up-a-virtual-postfix-mail-server-part-1/
I have a website that requires people to confirm their emails upon registration. My backend server is a node server. I am using nodemailer to deliver these confirmation emails.
For testing, I am currently using a gmail account to send these emails. And this is working perfectly.
Now however, I would like to upgrade and use my own domain email. And I would like to send out these emails under an email address like "no-reply#mydomain.com"
One of the requirements for my site is that it can handle sending up to 2000 confirmation emails in a day.
I have looked at email hosting like godaddy and it says that one email account with them allows only 250 emails a day, which is way less than 2000.
So, how can I achieve 2000 emails a day in the cheapest way possible? Any recommendations will be helpful.
Thank you in advance for helping me with my question.
I highly recommend GSuite by Google.
Once registered simply create a no-reply email (If I recall correctly, nodemailer needs the email to exist on the smtp server to work) and link it up. Good luck
I have set up my cpanel email address in Gmail under Check mail from other accounts (using POP3) and also under Send mail as (Mail is sent through: mail.mydomain.com Secured connection on port 587 using TLS)
Looking at Roundcube, I can see the received mails in there, but no sent mails - even though Gmail is sending via my domain server.
Is there a way to be able to view received AND sent mails that go through Gmail ?
Unfortunately emails do not work like that. There is no security as to where an email can be sent from.
I can send an email to anyone in the world and make it look like it was sent from you, most SMTP servers don't verify this information (hence why Gmail can send email from your domain even without your credentials).
Also, although this should theoretically be possible since it's being sent through your domain's SMTP server, it would take a lot of data to be able to store ALL mail that passes through it as associate it with every account. That's why some web email clients only store sent items for around 30 days.
Good luck with finding a suitable solution. This is why many companies use an Exchange server since it provides complete tracking of sent and received emails and disallow the use of Gmail.
I want to use node-mailer module to send emails to registering users on app for verification and other purposes also. I am not sure which transport mechanism to use so that emails I send are not a spam and also get delivered.
I also want to use the same domain to receive emails regarding support and bugs(i.e lets say on email on support#example.com). I am planning to set-up google apps account for this. Basically I will set-up the google apps account with me being an user and having an alias support#example.com. So can I also set-up an alias with say admin#example.com and send the emails using nodemailer from my app using this email address? But obviously I don't want to store my email id and password for google apps in the code for security reasons. So how Should I do it?
Other option is to Amazon SES, I believe its a good service and would be very useful. But can I use the same domain name for serving email from AMAZON SES and google apps also being able to host my app? So how to send emails from AMAZON SES by authenticating SPF and DKIM so that these emails reach the inbox of the user.
Saransh,
You absolutely can use the same domain and email address with both Google Apps and AmazonSES without any issues. When it comes to receiving emails, all messages have to be directed to a single server (your MX records). But sending email is very different in that you can send email from many different sources without any issues.
To ensure your messages don't go to the SPAM folder just be sure to properly authenticate all your messages with SPF and DKIM. I'm not sure how this works with AmazonSES, but it was really easy with the provider that I chose for my email http://socketlabs.com