13th December 2006

Gmail SMTP workaround

posted in edtech |

I learned a helpful trick relating to SMTP server settings by listening yesterday to TWiT podcast 76: Too Zune?. Using my wireless laptop from different WiFi hotspot locations, I’ve run into problems sending email with my 3rd party email software program because of different blocks that Internet Service Providers have on port 25 (used for SMTP email sending.) Perhaps I could have used the optional port 587 for Yahoo mail to permit outgoing mail to actually “send” out, but I still had my settings on port 25. As a result, I generally have been able to receive email through my POP mail client but not send email out (unless I use a webmail interface).

I learned listening to TWiT that GMail permits authenticated SMTP email sending via port 587. GMail has free POP and SMTP access for email users, unlike Yahoo which charges for those as premium services. This GMail SMTP configuration is working for me to send email. I suppose this may not work from all WiFi hotspots and on all school networks, but so far it IS working from connections I previously couldn’t email from without using webmail. :-)

On this day..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 at 11:58 am and is filed under edtech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 2 responses to “Gmail SMTP workaround”

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  1. 1 On December 13th, 2006, Rob Wall said:

    This is a great tip! I haven’t had a chance to listen to the new TWiT yet, so I’m looking forward to hearing more about this.

  2. 2 On December 13th, 2006, Chris Craft said:

    I suppose alternately you could fetch your pop3 email INTO Google. They call it mail fetcher..

    http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=gmail&hl=en&answer=21288

    If you had less than 5 accounts, this would be a good option!

    It’s not available to me yet, but I can’t wait, this is one of the best features outside of aliasing.

    PS..Awesome field trip through the Konza prarie!

    Yours,

    Chris Craft
    http://www.thinkingaboutteaching.com