How does the SMTP module work for Magento 2 store?

Everyone who is involved in e-commerce knows for sure that online business communicates with customers mostly through emails. It can be personalized communication or mass mailing; planned in advance or spontaneous that informs about urgent events or news; with entertaining content or useful info, etc. Any of those B2C email communications are not as plain and lawless as common everyday online correspondence between people.

The main goal of this article is to show you a step-by-step guide on how to configure the SMTP extension on your Magento 2 online store. You can go straight to the 4th section of the article and proceed to set up. However, if you still don't know what a SMTP extension is and what opportunities are the usage of the SMTP server can provide (specifically to your online business), we suggest you to read the following articles first:

1. In the article How to make the Effective Mass Mailing of the Magento 2 online store? we have discussed many important issues concerning the main difficulties, tasks of online mass mailing for online business and its possible contents. Referring to our research, an email campaign is one of the most powerful tools for online stores to interact with their customers. The only thing that can interfere with it is delivery troubles. But anyone who uses the SMTP module for Magento 2 can easily avoid this hurdle.
2. We talked a lot about SMTP servers and our SMTP module for Magento 2 in the article What is an SMTP? Functions and benefits of an SMTP server. Here you can find answers to "What's an SMTP server" and "How does it work" questions. Also here we've examined the step by step process of sending an email message after setting up the SMTP server and also considered the main SMTP server benefits. We’re suggesting to read this article for those who want to get into this topic more deeply and start taking steps towards safe mass mailings from the online store.
3. If you've already read the previous materials and know about the incredible benefits of using SMTP server for e-commerce business, we offer you the following piece of information: How to create a corporate email system with SMTP module for Magento 2?. Here you can find information about what a business email address is and what are its benefits. Also get acquainted with the three main ways to organize business mailing, namely: free SMTP email services, SMTP hosting service and personal SMTP server.

We have no doubt that installing the SMTP module on your Magento 2 store is a valuable solution in effectively running your e-commerce business. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol with which you have higher chances to send an email right to the customer’s range of vision, rather than to the spam folder.

Our extension helps you to easily use any third-party SMTP server for your Magento store and configure all necessary settings from the admin panel. The configuration of the extension is cuite simple because it has a predefined data autofill option. All you need is to do is select an SMTP provider and other fields will be filled automatically.

SMTP module gives you these three main attributes:

• Quick and guaranteed email delivery to your customers
• Log of emails with detailed view
• Easy check an SMTP connection

4. Configuration

Use the following steps to customize the module according to the specifics of your email needs:

General Settings Box

Select " Yes" in Enabled field to enable the SMTP module.

SMTP Provider field was created to make it possible to select the SMTP server hostname you would like to send your emails through. This field is required. You can choose one from the offered SMTP providers:

• Mailjet
• AOL Mail
• Comcast
• Gmail
• GMX
• Hotmail
• Mail.com
• Mailgun
• Office365
• Orange
• 02 Mail
• Outlook
• Yahoo
• Zoho

or to choose --OTHERS– option, if you would like to use the SMTP provider not from the list.

In Host Address type the SMTP server hostname you would like to send your emails through. This is also a required field.

In the Authentication dropdown list you should select the specific type of authentication. It can be None, Login, Plain or CRAM-MD5.

Username and Password fields are for you to type your username and password in the appropriate fields.

Type the port on the SMTP server you connect to in the Port field.

Your selection in SSL Security dropdown list will determine if any SSL security will be used to connect to your SMTP server. You can choose among No SSL, SSL or SSL TLS.

Send an Email settings box

Type an email in Email to field. If this field is empty, email will be sent to the custom support email.

In Content type the body of your email.

Click the button "Send" to send a test email.

A test email was successfully sent:

Logs settings box

In the Enabled field select "yes" to enable logs.

Type the number of days when the logs will be cleared in the Clear Logs After field. If this field is empty or is 0, then logs won't be automatically cleared up.

To view all logs click the “View” button.

SMTP Logs

To view all SMTP click: Configuration Panel > Logs > View All Logs > View

To view a necessary log click "View":

So, these are the basic configuration settings of the SMTP module. If you have any questions you can always contact our support team.