Simple Email Service: SMTP Users

Amazon's Simple Email Service (SES) can be used as a method for sending email, including using WordPress plugins like MailPoet. MailPoet allows for acquiring email subscribers for items such as a newsletter and using SES you can work around your web hosts email sending limits. Typically you would choose the Other sending option for this and click configure, choosing Amazon SES and entering the needed information. However, you can also use their SMTP setting to do this as well. In this training, we will look at how to create an SMTP user and get the needed credentials to use that service.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) settings

Once logged into your account through aws.amazon.com, click Services near the top left corner. Locate and click Business Applications on the left, and then click Amazon Simple Email Service.

This will bring you to the SES Account Dashboard. Click SMTP settings in the left hand navigation.

Now on the SMTP page, take note of the provided information: SMTP endpoint, Transport Layer Security (TLS) being required, STARTTLS Ports, and TLS Wrapper Port. Click the yellow Create SMTP credentials button.

Here you will be asked to provide a user name, optional tags and a yellow create user button to click to create the SMTP user.

You will be provided with three valuable pieces of information: IAM user name, SMTP user name and a SMTP password. Be sure to click Download .csv file, as you will not be provided this information again.

Click Return to SES console. You've now created SMTP credientials for use with sending emails using Amazon's Simple Email Service.