Sending Emails

1. FreeScout Email Sending Methods
2. Email Delivery Services
3. Email Service Providers (ESP)
   1. Send Rate Limits
   2. SMTP Configuration

Introduction

Each mailbox in FreeScout has an email address. This email is set as a sender for all outgoing emails sent to customers and support agents.

There are 3 main approaches for sending emails:

• Send emails from the server where FreeScout is installed (via PHP's mail() function or sendmail).
• Set up your own SMTP server and use it to send emails (for example Postal).
• Use one of the email delivery services (SendGrid, SendinBlue, Mailgun, etc) or email service providers (Gmail, G Suite, Office 365, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) to send emails. Popular email service providers do have some limitations on amount of emails sent per day, so keep this in mind.

1. FreeScout Email Sending Methods

FreeScout provides out of the box the following methods of sending emails to customers and support agents:

• PHP's mail() function — emails are sent directly from your server.
• Sendmail — emails are sent from your server.
• SMTP — emails are sent via SMTP by email service provider (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) or by email delivery service (Mailgun, SendGrid, etc).

2. Email Delivery Services

You are free to use any of the existing email delivery services to send emails from FreeScout:

• Elastic Email — 150,000 free emails per month (5,000 per day), requires to specify your company address in each outgoing email.
• Amazon SES — If your are using their EC2 server you get free 62,000 emails sent per month, and $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent thereafter.
• SendinBlue — 9,000 free emails per month (300 per day).
• Mailjet — 6,000 free emails per month (200 per day).
• Mailgun — 5,000 free emails per month.
• SendGrid — 6,000 free emails per month (100 per day).
• etc.

Just sign up with any email delivery service and fill out SMTP connection settings in your FreeScout installation under Manage » Mailboxes » Connection Settings

Amazon SES

• Regions and Amazon SES: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/regions.html

• Obtaining Amazon SES SMTP Credentials: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/smtp-credentials.html

• Configuring SPF-record for the domain: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/spf.html

SMTP server: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/smtp-connect.html

SMTP Port: 465 (How to open access to external hosts on Amazon instance)

Encryption: SSL

3. Email Service Providers (ESP)

3.1. Send Rate Limits

• G Suite (paid, free for nonprofits): 3000 unique recipients per day (10 000 with relay configured).
• Microsoft Office 365 Echange (paid, free for nonprofits): 10 000 emails per day.
• Gmail: 100-150 emails per day.
• Yahoo: 500 recipients per day.
• Hotmail / Live / Outlook: 100 emails per day.

3.2. SMTP Configuration

Gmail

• SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com
• Port: 465
• Username: example@gmail.com
• Encryption: SSL

Enable 2-Step Verification, create an App Password and use it in FreeScout (read more).

G Suite

• SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com
• Port: 465
• Username: example@gmail.com
• Encryption: SSL

Enable 2-Step Verification, create an App Password and use it in FreeScout (read more).

Microsoft 365 Exchange

• SMTP Server: smtp.office365.com
• Port: 587
• Encryption: TLS

Emails in Microsoft Exchange are sent via SMTP oAuth (see this instruction).

Yandex.Connect Mail

• SMTP Server: smtp.yandex.com
• Port: 465
• Username: example@domain.com
• Encryption: SSL

More info here