Part III: How to set up AWS SES with Thunderbird
Sending an email through SES using SMTP
There is a possibility to use an email client like Mozilla Thunderbird using the Amazon SES SMTP interface.
The main steps are:
- Creating SMTP credentials
- Setting up Thunderbird
- Sending a test email
- Viewing the sent email
Creating SMTP credentials
- The first step is to go to the Amazon SES dashboard.
- Click Create My SMTP Credentials
- Type an IAM User Name and click Create.
- The next page will show the SMTP username and password. Download and save the credentials.
Setting up Thunderbird
- Download Thunderbird (https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/) and install it.
- Open the application and click on the hamburger icon in the top right corner.
- Click Account Settings
- Click Add to enter in details for the outgoing server.
- SMTP information
Description: This can be anything. Mine is MillaStellan SES SMTP Server.
Server Name: My endpoint is email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
You can search for the endpoint for your region here: SES Endpoint
Port: 587
Connection security: STARTTLS
Authentication method: Normal Password
Username: Paste in the STMP Username that was created in the previous step
Click OK.
The SMTP server that you created will be used as the default server.
- Click Account Actions button from the bottom left corner. In the menu that pops up, click Add mail account
- Enter your name and type the email address that you want to set up with Thunderbird
- Leave the password field empty
- Uncheck the Remember password box
- Click Continue
- If there is a warning that says that Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email account, click Advanced config.
- Click OK in the next modal.
- For Outgoing Server (SMTP), change it to the server that was created in the previous step.
- Click Server Settings from the sidebar
- Connection security: STARTTLS
- Authentication method: Normal password
- Uncheck the following:
Check for new messages at startup
Check for new messages every ten minutes
Allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive
- Click on the Home tab
- If the folder pane is not visible in the Home tab, click on View -> Layout -> Folder pane
- Right click on Local Folders and create a New Folder
- Create two folders for Sent and Drafts
- Go back to Account Settings tab and click on Copies & Folders from the sidebar.
- Place a copy in: Choose other and Sent under Local folders
- Uncheck Message archives
- Keep draft messages in: Choose other and Drafts under Local folders
- Close the Account Settings tab
Sending a test email
- Click Write, write a new email and click Send
- Thunderbird will ask for a password for the Outgoing (SMTP) Server. This is the SMTP password that was created with SES. Paste it here and click OK.
- If the login failed, click Retry.
- Check if you received the email
Viewing the sent email
All the emails will be stored in an S3 bucket. In order to view the test email that was sent in the previous step, navigate to the AWS S3 dashboard.
There will be another file with a unique string of letters and numbers. It will be something like this: 8jhpa9pghortv697300cbhme3jurcd8475ivfi81
- Click on the checkbox in front of the file name.
- Click Actions and then download.
- Rename the file with the extension .eml and open with Mail or Thunderbird.
If the article helped you, I would appreciate a cup of coffee.
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