FINALLY an SMTP plugin that WORKS!

Post SMTP takes a while to setup with intermediate level Google API setups.

But Post SMTP WORKS!

I set up four unique sites this morning with Post SMTP after several hours of failures with SendGrid, MailGun APIs, and their plugins, as well as huge fails from the “Easy” SMTP plugin and the WP Mail SMTP plugin.

I tried the “Easy” SMTP plugin. It failed to display the settings on the admin settings page, even after deactivating all plugins.

I tried the most famous WordPress Mail SMTP plugin. Fail. After setting up everything following their complex and jumbled instructions–which absolutely no longer match the Google API setups–fail. 403 error: The dev has not been verified by Google. Google this error from them and there are loads of pages on this issue. Go to their support forum and they reply to people with this error as if it is a rare thing.

Many hours into fumbling through botched instructions from the other plugins I gave Post SMTP a shot. I needed to get email working from four WP sites this morning and I was going to work 36 hours to get it done if I had to.

Post SMTP instructions are the cleanest and clearest. There are a couple of steps omitted (needing updates?), but they are easy enough to work through.

The one final step which failed and worked finally, is the last authorization from the Post SMTP admin screen that wants to connect to your Gmail address. You need to think it through, and then do it TWICE. After that you will get the message in the admin settings page that the plugin is working.

I did all four sites in tandem, step by step. So, this was easier and took less time.

In the end, I used the Check & Log Email plugin to test each site and they all work. I got an email from each site.

BTW If more hosts would take care of WordPress Transactional emails (like Kinsta does), then this would not be such an incredibly exhausting perennial issue.

Even better? 20 years into WordPress, maybe WordPress could fix this.