CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

is it possible to use Google Apps SMTP account in civicrm for mailing? currently am using CiviSMTP , To use Google Engine what steps need to follow?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Works fine for return channel, but google apps is not meant to do mass mailing via smtp and it won't work (reliably).

Stay with your existing provider for the smtp or switch, but to a big one made for mass mailing

smtp works fine, the limitation is on the smtp servers google provides: they will start rejecting your requests to send after a while, when they consider it's too many.

I don't think there is a precise threshold when you enter the "google thinks you are a spammer" zone, but when you do, they will start rejecting your sending, and civimail will likely see that as a bounce of an invalid recipient, because it's not always possible to distinguish why the email is rejected.

I've heard a lot of good reports from users of CiviSMTP. I think there is a mailchimp integration too, but haven't tried it myself.

Mandrill is not meant for mass mailing indeed.

X+

Thanks Hershal (even though I now its a bit of a conflict of interest
Theoretically, these are the official limits posted by Google: http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=166852
And this is their bulk email policy: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126?hl=en

Note - I wouldn't attempt this with the now obsolete "Free" google apps account as they have greater restrictions and many limitations.
I plan to do some testing.
Another nice thing is that Google Apps now have very sophisticated email routing which allows dual or split mode - http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2685650

Finally, another option entirely might be to use the Google Groups for Business (also form non-profits but different than regular Google Groups.)  which is designed for bulk mail and can have it's own mailing list (and collaboration, etc.)  This would essentially allow a single email to a group, but would obviously eliminate any tokens or stats.  It may be appropriate for some email - bounce processing and list management would be handled outside of civi.  Integration of civi and Google groups would be a fantastic project for someone interested in this.  The limits are far more generous: http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2524618 .

All of this is theoretical but I'm planning on some testing.  Insights or experience would be welcome.