SMTP blocked, what's the alternative?

Heya, @jedid83

You have a couple of options: you can open a support ticket and request the SMTP restriction to be lifted on your Droplet and they’ll usually do it if your account has some history and you explain the use case.

• Or use a service like https://smtpfa.st/, SendGrid, Mailgun, or Postmark, much better for deliverability anyway. They allow SMTP over API, which is a good workaround and better for performance too.

Honestly the API route is usually the better option anyway, it is more reliable deliverability and you don’t have to worry about your IP getting blacklisted.

Hope that this helps!

Heya,

You can try to contact DigitalOcean and ask them to open either port 465 or 587(one or the other). You’ll need to provide more info on the APP so that the Support know as much as possible before taking the decision.

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

Hope that helps! - KFSys.

Hey 👋

Yep, default SMTP ports like 25 are blocked by default on new accounts to prevent abuse. Even though you’re using authenticated Gmail SMTP, the block still applies.

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

Your best bet is to either:

• Reach out to DigitalOcean support and ask if they can review your account and unblock it (they don’t always do it, but worth a try),

• Or use a service like https://smtpfa.st/, SendGrid, Mailgun, or Postmark, much better for deliverability anyway. They allow SMTP over API, which is a good workaround and better for performance too.

Some SMTP providers also support alternative ports like 2525, so you might want to check if Gmail does (last I checked, it doesn’t, but maybe worth double-checking).

Let me know how it goes!

- Bobby