Tag Archives: Google Apps

How to send email in WordPress using Gmail’s SMTP server

Published Sep 15, 2009 | In WordPress

Well this question was asked to me for more than a couple of times now. So I thought of documenting it here, instead of answering them individually. 🙂

Long time readers of my blog would know that I use Google App for email. Ever since I moved to Linode for hosting, I stopped running a mail daemon in my server, and instead choose to use Gmail’s SMTP server for sending email.

There were two reasons for it. First most email providers ignore or mark as spam, emails sent from non-SMTP servers. Second, removing mail daemon from server will save some resources and will increase the over all performance of my server.

Using SMTP in WordPress

For WordPress there is an excellent Plugin called WP Mail SMTP, which can be used to send email through Google’s SMTP servers.

Download and install the Plugin and in the settings page you have to set the following options.

  • SMTP Host: smtp.gmail.com
  • SMTP Port: 465
  • Encryption: Use SSL encryption
  • Authentication: Yes
  • Username: Your full Gmail address or Google App email
  • Password: your account password

You can also checkout the following screenshot for reference.

using gmail smtp in WordPress

I am also working on a Plugin to log all emails sent by WordPress. Expect it to be released soon 🙂 (Update: The Plugin to log all emails is ready. It is called Email Log and you can download it from the Plugins page.)

Update (Oct 2012)

I just realized that these days Google has added additional security for logging in using other clients. If your email is not sent properly after giving correct password, then refer to instructions at Gmail help to fix it.

Also if you have enabled two factor authentication, then refer to this Gmail support page.

Posted in WordPress | Tagged , , , , | 66 Comments

DocSyncer adds support for Google Apps account

Published Feb 13, 2008 | In Google/Yahoo

Recently, when I showed you how to automatically backup documents to Google Docs using DocSyncer, I mentioned that it is not possible to backup the documents to your Google Apps account. But today DocSyncer have released an update and now it is possible to backup the documents to your Google Apps account.

You have to go to the Account settings tab and then click disconnect and then connect again. You will be taken to a page where you can select either Google Apps account or standard Gmail account.

DocSyncer

This is very useful to me, since I have started to use my Google Apps account instead of the standard Gmail account. Good job DocSyncer!

Posted in Google/Yahoo | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Automatically backing up documents in Google Docs

Published Feb 6, 2008 | In Google/Yahoo

I was looking for a way to automatically backup my documents in Google Docs from my desktop. After a bit of googling, I found a great service called DocSyncer which worked exactly the same way I wanted it to work. So I thought of sharing the steps which I followed to back up my documents from desktop to Google Docs.

First sign up for the service from its home page.

DocSyncer

Then allow DocSyncer access to your Google Docs, by clicking “Grant Access” in the next screen

DocSyncer

After this download and install the DocSyncer program from the next screen

DocSyncer

By default DocSyncer syncs all documents which are present in your desktop and in your Documents folder. I wanted only a few documents to be synced, so I created a new folder called InSync in my Documents folder and selected only that folder and unchecked all the other folders. If you want to sync all the documents which are present in your Documents folder then you don’t need to edit anything.

DocSyncer

That’s it and now all the documents present in the folder that you have selected will be automatically synced. You can download the current version or the previous version of the document from the web interface.

DocSyncer

You can also directly download the document from the Google Docs page.

You can also associate document files (.doc, .ppt, .xls etc) with DocSyncer so that they are automatically opened in Google Docs instead of opening them from the local desktop. This can be done by changing the file association from the Account Setting tab of the web interface.

DocSyncer

I am using DocSyncer for the past one week and these are my findings based on my experience in the past week.

Pros

  • All previous versions of the file are stored.
  • You can directly open the file in Google Docs from any computer which has access to internet. You don’t need to have Microsoft Office suite installed.
  • Very clean interface and nice desktop Integration.
  • Connection through SSL (but you need to enable it in the Account Settings tab)

Cons

  • Can easily cluster your Google Docs page if the file is changed very frequently.
  • In the current beta version you cannot select any folder apart from the desktop and Documents folder.
  • It can upload only to Google Docs and not to Google Apps Docs. Update (2008-Feb-13): DocSyncer has added support for Google Apps account.

Posted in Google/Yahoo | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Migrating from Gmail to Google Apps

Published Jan 22, 2008 | In Google/Yahoo

I am one of the early adapters of Gmail and I simply love it. I could still remember how excited I was when I received an invite from my friend Sumod.

A couple of months back I signed up for Google Apps and have set it up in my domain. It’s really cool to have a personalized email address yourname@yourdomain.com which you can have control over instead of having a generic email address like yourname@gmail.com. If you are still not convinced then read this article from lifehacker.

But then I found it very difficult to maintain two different accounts. For some time I was redirecting the mail that I receive in my Google Apps account to my Gmail account and also setup a custom from address to my Google Apps email address. But it was not looking good in some email clients like outlook, which exposed the customized from address. This made me to search for ways to migrate all my emails from Gmail to Google Apps. I have been using my Gmail account for nearly three and half years and have accumulated nearly 2.5 GB of mail.

Finally I found gXFER which actually worked and now all my old emails are backed up in my Google Apps account. So even if you want to move your emails from one Gmail account to another or to a Google Apps account or vice versa then follow these steps.

First, you need to add the Google gadget which is available in gXFER homepage to your Google personalized home page.

Now click the “Start Migration Online” link which is present in the new gadget which you have added to your Google personalized homepage (iGoogle).

Migrating from Gmail to Google Apps

Enter your Gmail account information and Google Apps account information and then click start.

Migrating from Gmail to Google Apps

Migrating from Gmail to Google Apps

If you get this screen then you are done. The migration is started and all your emails from Gmail will start to appear in your Google Apps account, but it might take very long time depending upon your inbox size. For me it took around 3 days for the complete transfer. The transfer rate is around 100 messages per hour.

The following are some of the points which I noted when my emails were migrated.

  • As I said above the transfer rate is very slow, only 100 messages per hour. So it could easily take up days if your inbox size is big.
  • All your contacts will be transferred without any problem.
  • All the labels and filters that you have created will be transferred. If you have set up a filter to automatically assign a label to a message then it will work. But if you have explicitly assigned a label to a message then it will not be transferred.
  • Messages present in the following labels will not be transferred Chats, Spam and trash.
  • Your drafts will not be transferred.
  • Messages will not be stared automatically, which means all your staring will be lost.
  • If any of your attachments is infected with virus then those messages will not be transferred.
  • The process appears to be stopped sometimes but actually it is not stopped and works but very slowly.

Once you have set it up, you can enable mail notification in Google Talk and then sit back and watch it as your messages gets transferred to your Google Apps account.

Happy emailing 🙂

Posted in Google/Yahoo | Tagged , , | 17 Comments