Important update for Gmail SMTP Relay through Google

General
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Dear community, the following is an important update about the use of Gmail SMTP-relay:

Even with the above changes in place, recently some schools have encountered issues with emails being bounced back as rejected by the Gmail SMTP-relay servers after successfully sending from Gibbon. I wanted to update the community, since this is unfortunately not an issue on Gibbon’s end, but rather with the SMTP-relay service itself.

The Issue

  • Gmail SMTP-relay is a free service provided by Google. As such, they impose a lot of spam protection filters on this mail system so that it is not abused.
  • Although emails sent from Gibbon are not spam, they may inadvertently triggered these filters because of the high volume of similar content sent via Messenger.
  • Unfortunately, Google keeps the exact working of many of their algorithms undisclosed, particularly spam detection, to prevent the algorithms being circumvented. They are also continuously changing their spam detection without warning.
  • Recently we have found that even with verified SPF, DKIM and DMARC settings, the SMTP-relay server may block or reject emails without warning.

The Solution

  • If you school sends a large volume of emails from Gibbon, particularly through Messenger, and have encountered bounce-backs from the SMTP Relay, we recommend looking into an alternate SMTP solution.
  • Generally, this will mean needing to use a paid SMTP service. Although Gibbon is free, the sending of email does require access to mail servers to send email, and if your school sends a high volume of email from Gibbon (2000+ per day), then a paid service may be the most reliable option.
  • Schools that I work with have recently successfully switched to using MailGun. This can be done by setting up a MailGun account, adding a domain to their system, and following the steps in their setup process to add the necessary DNS settings to DNS zone for your domain.
  • Other email services that provide SMTP credentials would also likely work just as effectively.
  • You can find the Gibbon STMP settings in System Admin > Third Party Settings.

Hope this helps any schools who have encountered bounce-back issues with the Gmail SMTP-relay.