When people come across the term, SMTP they assume it is some technical jargon beyond their comprehension. They associate the term with the field of computers and something only experts will be aware of. However, SMTP merely stands for ‘Simple Mail Transfer Protocol’. And like the name suggests, it helps you send emails from other programs using your Gmail address. Hence, if you want to keep your outlook account or some other accounts settings but cannot access it, you can set your settings to Gmail SMTP and use it easily from anywhere in the world.
Once you set up the SMTP protocol for your email, it will reroute all your emails from Gmail and address them from your Gmail address too. This makes it easier for you to access your emails and send emails since using the Gmail SMTP settings helps you access all your emails and synthesize them into one place.
How to Set your Gmail SMTP Settings
If you have decided that you need the Gamil SMTP settings to ease your life and make access to your email harder from different locations, then you need to set everything up for it. The first thing you need to check are the default settings of your Gmail account. These settings will be as we have explained in detail below.
The SMTP Server you will have will be: tls://smtp.Gmail.com
Now the SMTP port settings have to be very specific thus make sure it is ‘465’. After that make sure you check the choice of SMTP authentication and also the option for SMTP TLS/SSL. With this add in the Gmail username and password, you want to be linked to your different email platforms.
Similarly, you can check emails from your Gmail account on other devices and other platforms other than the Gmail application or website. The settings to make sure this can happen seamlessly without you being locked out of your account are very simple. Just follow the steps as defined below and you will be totally fine.
The first thing you need to do is login to your Gmail account from your computer. Then look at the top right corner of your screen to page where it says ‘Settings’. Once you click the Settings option, click on the option which says ‘ Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ and then once it opens, go to the ‘IMAP Access’ section where you will be able to choose an option which says ‘Enable IMAP’. Once you have followed all of these steps and are sufficiently satisfied, click on ‘Save Changes’ so all the changes you make to the settings are successfully saved.
Advantages of the Gmail SMTP Settings
There are quite a few perks of using the Gmail SMTP Settings as the service is quite unique and actually very helpful to a lot of people. If you use the Gmail SMTP Settings properly they can bring you a lot of benefits. Read on to know why you should consider the Gmail SMTP Settings as your default settings.
- Synthesize Email
A lot of people have several emails, a work email address, one on a different carrier and another on another carrier thus this creates a lot of confusion especially if all of those email addresses are in use. Thus there is an easy way to combat this; use Gmail SMTP Settings. This way you can link all of your accounts into one place and receive emails from all of them in your Gmail account. This way you will not miss out on the emails from any of these accounts.
- Easy Access
The main reason a lot of people use Gmail SMTP Settings is that they can help them log into any of their email accounts from one place. This means that any email you might have on a platform such as Outlook or Thunderbird which require a very specific software to be logged into can be logged into easily if you set your Gmail SMTP Settings correctly. This way you do not have to worry about the fact whether if you go somewhere if the software will be available for you to login to your email address since with your Gmail SMTP Settings you can login to your account from anywhere in the world with no problems at all.
- Security
As everyone knows, Google takes measures of security very seriously to ensure all of its users are always safe. Thus they will ensure that your account is not being misused by anyone under the guise of Gmail SMTP Settings and having linked various accounts and acting as a third party that has been authorized. You can know for sure that Gmail will protect your account to the best of its ability. While at times this can seem annoying to people; it is a very necessary step. When several accounts are linked with one another it is even more important to ensure that the account is safe and that is exactly what Google sets out to do.
Issues with the Gmail SMTP Settings
While the Gmail SMTP settings are incredibly helpful especially when you are out of station away from your computer and cannot access your email from your Outlook account or your Thunderbird account. However, the Gmail SMTP is not perfect and has some problems of its own that people have pointed out again and again.
- Email Address
Once you change your SMTP settings to Gmail, this will automatically set the email to your Gmail for whenever you login. So when you send emails from your account, the person who the email is sent to, will see the ‘From’ portion with your Gmail address. This might cause a lot of confusion since the email might have been sent to one email address and the reply is being received from another email address. The reports of this incidence have been low but it can be expected that if the email is from an unknown email address, the email itself might end up in the Spam email box.
- Reply To Settings
When you use the Reply To option on an email while using Gmail SMTP, this will automatically, override your settings and change them to the interface which Gmail provides its users with. This means if you are not familiar with the interface already, this might be difficult for you and hence not the most ideal situation. Thus people who are used to their Outlook email interface might find themselves confused with the new interface they have to figure out. This might be especially frustrating when you are in a coffee shop or using someone else’s computer since there is a time crunch and you have to get done with your task as soon as possible. So spending extra time trying to figure out the interface itself might just infuriate you.
- Limits
When you use Gmail SMTP server from a remote email then your functionality is somewhat limited. This means that you cannot send and receive unlimited emails from your account but are restricted to a certain amount of emails only. Once you cross your daily limit, for all intents and purposes your account is frozen since you cannot do anything solid with it. The limit on SMTP emails is that you can only send a 100 emails a day and only up to 3000 emails a month! This is nothing especially if you are running a business. The Gmail SMTP settings are incredibly helpful but in terms of functionality there is next to none. The limit is too little and is totally unacceptable for most people unless they do not use their email address as much.
- Access Problems
Since Gmail prides itself over providing users with a safe email address and security being their top priority, using the email might be a little hard if you are doing it from another location than your usual one or are authorizing third parties to use your account on your behalf. Gmail will ask for you to verify that this person trying to access your account was you. And if you do not have access to your Gmail account, the original one, you will find that this is a big problem. So imagine going to a coffee shop or to the other side of the world just to find out that you cannot access your email account because you did not configure your Gmail SMTP Settings correctly. This would then mean that you have no way to access your account. This could turn into an ugly situation really quickly if the only way you can access your account is through your Gmail SMTP Settings and you cannot configure them because your computer which you usually login to your account with is at home which cannot be reached!
In the end, whatever settings you choose should only be chosen so that they can convenience you. Make sure you know all the pros and cons of enabling any type of Gmail SMTP Settings on your account and what it will entail before you make your final decision.
Cybil