Can't droplets use SMTP service?

Heya,

DigitalOcean blocked SMTP ports in order to deal with spam. This has been raised as a concern as legitimate users like yourself are suffering. I’ll keep you posted once we have any information about the lift.

Heya, @akayd1

SMTP was disabled to prevent our servers from sending out spam. An internal procedure is in place regarding this, and we will keep you updated on this matter.

Regards

Hey!

Just a quick update in case anyone comes across this in the future. The SMTP ports (25, 465, and 587) are blocked on all Droplets for new accounts to prevent spam and other abuses:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/support/why-is-smtp-blocked/

Even if SMTP were available, DigitalOcean strongly recommends against running your own mail server in favor of using a dedicated email deliverability platform. Dedicated email deliverability platforms are better at handling deliverability factors like IP reputation.

To send mail from DigitalOcean, they recommend using an SMTP service like SendGrid or https://smtpfa.st/ or any other reliable SMTP service.

Alternatively, you could reach out to the DigitalOcean support team and check if they could lift the block for you but in many cases this is not possible:

https://www.digitalocean.com/support/

Another option is to use a non-standard SMTP port like 2525 for example if your SMTP provider allows it.