Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Rodolfo Siles -
Number of replies: 14

We run a Moodle 2.6 site, so far we have been using Gmail for the SMTP email and it was working fine until we hit the Gmail limit of sent emails. 

With the increase in courses and students its now a priority for us to change the SMTP. Are there any good (free if possible) alternatives of Gmail that we can use to setup the SMTP messaging in Moodle?

I read about SMTP relays, there are some that have free trials or free accounts for low numbers of emails sent. Does anyone has an experience with them, Any recommendations?


Thank you!

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In reply to Rodolfo Siles

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by pablo molina -

Look at Amazon ASW SMTP Services, that is what we use and works for us.

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In reply to Rodolfo Siles

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Howard Miller -
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Are you sure the host or whoever connects you to the Internet doesn't have an SMTP service you can use?

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Rodolfo Siles -

We host with Site5. They do a great service, and I will follow your advice and ask if they have the SMTP service we need. That way all will be managed in one account.

Thank you!

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In reply to Rodolfo Siles

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Adam Jenkins -
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You could try using the PHPmailer function without an SMTP server at all. You may need to install sendmail on your server, but after that, clearing out all SMTP settings may allow Moodle to use the PHPmailer to send out emails. This is probably the easiest to configure (no config necessary) and will likely have no limits to the number of emails you can send.


How is your Moodle hosted?

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In reply to Adam Jenkins

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Adam

You wrote:
> try using the PHPmailer function without an SMTP server at all. You may need to install sendmail on your server,

If the PHPmailer can send without a SMTP server why does it need sendmail? This is a misconception. The PHPmailier handing over mails to the local SMTP doesn't mean that "the PHPmailer function without an SMTP server"!
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Adam Jenkins -
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Hi Visvanath,

Allow me to correct my erroneous statement:

>You could try using the PHPmailer function without an SMTPserver at all

should have been

>You couldtry using the PHPmailer function without an external SMTPserver

Yes, I meant that sendmail can take care of it locally. The original post was by someone relying on Google's SMTP Server (external). It's often trivial to setup sendmail and as far as I have experienced, much more convenient.

Any other misconceptions, please elaborate to educate.

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In reply to Adam Jenkins

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Adam

Apologies, if my wording was harsh. This confilct has history! Read "How do find where the email process breaks down?" https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=280954#p1207241 (and the discussion thread around it).
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Adam Jenkins -
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Hi Visvanath,

No problems! I was unaware of the history of misconceptions. I can see how people would get confused though. 


Rodolfo, I contacted Site5 (I also have a friend looking for Moodle 2.8 hosting at the moment - good timing) and they confirmed that sendmail is installed on their servers. So, removing the SMTP settings (just leave them blank) from Moodle should make the mailer send mails via sendmail (wow, what a mouthful).

Hope this helps!

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In reply to Adam Jenkins

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Adam

Coming back to the original problem, do you have the documentation page from Site5? I happen to check Site5 today for a friend and the 'localhost' asked me to authenticate with POP3 before trying to SMTP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POP_before_SMTP.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Adam Jenkins -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Visvanath,

No, I wasn't able to find a documentation page for Site5. But they did have a chat room on their site for general enquiries. I chatted with a staffer there and confirmed that they have sendmail installed. The staffer said nothing about POP before SMTP or any other SMTP requirements and regretabbly, I didn't think to ask. They did say that even on their low level hosting plans, they support MySQL 5.5 and PHP 5.4. Also that additional PHP modules can be enabled on a per site basis. However, opcache is only enabled on higher tier plans (pretty standard for shared hosting).

Hope this helps.

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In reply to Adam Jenkins

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Late report: On Site5, the local server accepts mail without authentication, at least in the package my collegue has. Left SMTP hosts, SMTP username and SMTP password empty and forum posts go as mail. (Their problem was that cron was not configured!)
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In reply to Adam Jenkins

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Rodolfo Siles -

Thank you, that is very helpful, I will try that option and see how it goes.

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In reply to Adam Jenkins

Re: Moodle SMTP email options other than Gmail

by Rodolfo Siles -

Thank you Adam for your reply

We host with Site5, we will try that option after we complete our courses by the end of the month. But I guess I will need to ask Site5 if this option needs any approval, due to the amount of emails. By the way we host on a virtual server.


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