Intro
In this blog post, I’m going to help you connect your free gmail account to WP Mail SMTP (wordpress mail simple mail transfer protocol). This is necessary for the purpose of successfully sending and receiving email messages through your contact form on your website. I’m writing this blog post as a sequel to the previous post on how to create Gmail API (free web application needed to use WP Mail SMTP), so if you missed that blog post, here’s the link so you can keep up:
Create Gmail API With Your Free Google Account!
Install WP Mail SMTP
Log in to your wordpress dashboard. On the navigation menu to the left, come to ”Plugins – Add New Plugin.” Search for ”WP Mail SMTP.” ”Install Now” and ”Activate” it. WP Mail SMTP is going to allow us to connect our free gmail email address. You can use other paid mailing services (such as Microsoft 365/Outlook, Zoho Mail, SendLayer, SparkPost, Mailgun, SMTP.com, etc.). But in this tutorial, we’re going to do it completely for free using free gmail account. After you’ve successfully installed WP Mail SMTP, it is going to become attached to the navigation menu to the left on your wordpress dashboard, so select it and click on ”Settings” so we can set up our free gmail email address.
Connnect Your Free Gmail Account
1st step – provide your free gmail email address in ”From Email” field. Turn ”Force From Email” button on so your free gmail email address is going to be used for all outgoing emails.
2nd step – provide your personal name or business name (if you’re running some type of business) in the ”From Name” blank field. I’m going to use my own personal name – Tom Petrac. ”Force From Name” so your name is used for all emails.
3rd step – choose Google/Gmail as ”Mailer.” Next, skip ”One-Click Setup” because we don’t want to pay anything.
4th step – provide your ”Client ID” and ”Client Secret” from your created Gmail API in the previous post:
Create Gmail API With Your Free Google Account!
Configure Client ID and Client Secret
Log in to your Google Cloud Platform – https://console.cloud.google.com. Select your created project on the top next to Google Cloud icon however you named it (I named mine ”Random Name”) and on the ”APIs & Services” navigation menu, click on ”Credentials.” Find your created application under ”0Auth 2.0 client IDs.” I’ve left the default name ”Web client 1” when I was creating my Gmail API, yours is the same, unless you named it differently. Scroll all the way to the right and click on the pencil icon so you can grab both your Client ID and Client Secret. Copy & Paste them 1 by 1 in WP Mail SMTP settings in the required blank fields. Afterwards, scroll all the way down and ”Save Settings.” Congrats, you’ve successfully connected your free gmail email address and WP Mail SMTP. All we have left to do is test sending and receiving email messages with our free gmail email on our contact form so we’re rest assured that everything is working just fine.
Bottom Line
If you managed to follow this blog post until the end, now you’ve successfully connected your free gmail email address to WP Mail SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) so you can send and receive email messages with your free gmail email address. Plus, you can also receive and automatically reply back to your email inquiries through contact form on your website. But more on that in the next blog post, so stay tuned! Also, if you missed my post on how to create your free Gmail API so you can get your Client ID and Client Secret credentials needed to connect your free gmail email address and WP Mail SMTP, here’s the link:
Create Gmail API With Your Free Google Account!
Appreciate you taking the time to read this entire tutorial on how to connect your Gmail to WP Mail SMTP! Hope it helped you out! Comment down below if you’re facing any issues, I’m happy to help! In the next post, we will test sending and receiving email messages so we’re certain that everything is working smoothly!
Comments
One response to “Easily Connect Free Gmail Account To WP Mail SMTP!”
[…] https://tomswebsitedesign.com/gmail-smtp-configuration/ […]