CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I was using gmail previously as my outbound smtp server as well as my account to catch bounces for civimail. When I would configure my SMTP settings for that and 'save and send test email' the from address was the gmail account.

Now I want to try to use a non-gmail account. My website domain is (as an example) 'mydomain.com'. To make my mailings look better, I want to send email from 'mydomain.net' (can't use the .com because mail for that is set up with an exchange server). So I registered 'mydomain.net' and am pointing it to the same webhost and have the email address 'admin@mydomain.net' set up. That's what I want to use for bounces.

I can configure IMAP client on my computer just fine and it sends/receives from admin@mydomain.net without a problem. So now I want to set it for outgoing mail in CiviCRM. When I go to configure that and choose 'save and send test email' the from address is 'admin@mydomain.com'. Why is this acting differently than when I use gmail?

I wouldn't care except that when I try to do a CiviMail all the bounces go to 'admin@mydomain.com' instead of 'admin@mydomain.net', so they don't get processed.

Is this DNS related or Civi related?

I think I'm not explaining myself clearly.

Here is what I need with CiviMail:
From address of: admin@mydomain.net (for bounces)
Reply to: admin@mydomain.com

IF I configure my outgoing SMTP settings with a Gmail address, then the above becomes:
From address: gmail address
Reply to: admin@mydomain.com

Meaning, it is working how I would want it. But once I configure my outgoing SMTP settings to use the 'mydomain.net' address, I get the following:

From address: admin@mydomain.com
Reply to: admin@mydomain.com

If I add 'admin@mydomain.net' to the 'From Addresses', then it only changes to the following:

From address: admin@mydomain.net
Reply to: admin@mydomain.net

Whether I do or do not override the VERP address, I either always get both From/Reply to as being from 'admin@mydomain.com' or both being to 'admin@mydomain.net'. I need the combination like it works properly with gmail.

Not to mention for the Gmail option I don't have to add a new From address and it works perfectly. So why does this happen?

Two things in case there's some kind of bug here.

I did get this working, thank you for explaining return-path, I feel very dense but I was not understanding that properly. So I can now send from my .com address but have my return path set to the .net address and my bounces are working (I had to set up a catch all as you suggested). This worked.

However, just an FYI on the gmail stuff. I just double checked by reverting back to that, and this is what happens:

- With a Gmail address in my outgoing SMTP settings
- Gmail address as my Mail Account for the IMAP bounce connection
- No gmail address in the 'From Accounts' area

Then if I do a CiviMail doing a 'FROM' as my normal 'admin@mydomain.com', and I choose to override VERP, the email comes through with:

- FROM is the gmail address
- Reply-to is the admin@mydomain.com
- return-path is gmail address

It sounded like from your post that is in fact the wrong behavior...This is 3.1.5. So just confirming that I do see that.

For my purposes, this is resolved, so thanks so much. But if you need me to further test the gmail stuff let me know!

I did get this working, thank you for explaining return-path, I feel very dense but I was not understanding that properly.

Please don’t feel that way – this is definitely not easy, and any such feelings come from the fact that everyone assumes it’s easy (the whole difference between the email’s From header and the SMTP envelope’s FROM ‘header’ – which gets translated to the email’s Return-Path header and is the one bounces should go to – is the ‘aha!’, or, more often, ‘why is this so complicated‽’ moment).

So I can now send from my .com address but have my return path set to the .net address and my bounces are working (I had to set up a catch all as you suggested). This worked.

You need to either setup a catch-all address or use the localpart setting; in Gmail’s (and many other servers’) case if you have an account@example.org address, any emails sent to account+anything@example.org will be delivered to account@example.org.

However, just an FYI on the gmail stuff. I just double checked by reverting back to that, and this is what happens:

- With a Gmail address in my outgoing SMTP settings
- Gmail address as my Mail Account for the IMAP bounce connection
- No gmail address in the 'From Accounts' area

Then if I do a CiviMail doing a 'FROM' as my normal 'admin@mydomain.com', and I choose to override VERP, the email comes through with:

- FROM is the gmail address
- Reply-to is the admin@mydomain.com
- return-path is gmail address

It sounded like from your post that is in fact the wrong behavior...This is 3.1.5. So just confirming that I do see that.

Thanks, this is most interesting…