What is SMTP?

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is a technical standard for transmitting email over a network. Like other networking protocols, SMTP allows computers and servers to exchange data regardless of their underlying hardware or software. SMTP is a mail delivery protocol, not a mail retrieval protocol. It simply allows apps to connect and send emails using your mail account.

Methods to connect

Fileflare allows you to connect your own email address, allowing Fileflare to send download emails using your email. There are a few methods for doing this:

Option 1 - SMTP - Connecting your email directly to Fileflare using SMTP to allow Fileflare to send emails using your account.
Option 2 - SMTP providers (recommended) - Most email apps provide the ability to connect using SMTP. If you have a favourite one to use, check to see if they have SMTP functionality.

Reasons why option 2 is recommended:

View email tracking and insights
Get the best deliverability; the platforms help you set everything up easily
Dedicated IPs
Use any email address for your domain, even if it's not a real email. E.g. downloads@example.com
Works alongside and does not conflict with your existing email system, such as Google Workspace etc.
Easier to set up

How to do it

Option 1 (not recommended) - Using a direct connection to your email account using SMTP - Go to guide

Google Workspace users - Google no longer supports SMTP. Alternatively, you can use the methods below in option 2. These platforms work by verifying your email's domain with the platform using DNS (this does not cause interruption to your current email setup or domain DNS), and then integrating the platform with Fileflare via SMTP details. This method ensures optimal email deliverability. It may sound scary to set up, but it's very easy and better than regular SMTP.

Option 2 - Using an SMTP provider (setup time est. 5-10 minutes)

There are many providers that allow connecting your domain via SMTP. This works alongside any other email setup which does not cause interruption to your mail accounts.

Brevo - Go to guide

Brevo is the fastest and easiest to set up. Easy domain verification and super easy interface. No wait times for verifying domains. The best choice from our experience.

Speed of setup: 5/5 Ultrafast
Ease of setup: 5/5 Super easy
Brevo's free plan allows up to 300 free emails per day. Brevo pricing.
Brevo's first pricing plan starts with sending up to 5,000 emails per month for $8/m.

Postmark - Go to guide

Postmark have a verification process of between 1-24 hours. This is to ensure that they get the best deliverability. From our experience, it only takes 1-2 hours.
Speed of setup: 4/5 Not instant, but it only takes 1-2 hours to get verified. This ensures the best deliverability for their systems.
Ease of setup: 5/5 Easy
Postmark's free plan allows up to 100 free emails per day. Maximum of 3000 per month for free. Postmark pricing.
Postmark's first pricing plan starts with sending up to 10,000 emails per month for $15/m.

Mailtrap - Go to guide

Mailtrap have a domain verification process which is pretty fast. But sometimes requires you to do a business verification to understand how your business sends emails. This is to keep the Mailtrap deliverability good.
Speed of setup: 3/5 Slow because of the domain review process. They must review your domain after adding and can take up to one business day. From our experience, this takes about 1-2 hours.
Ease of setup: 4/5 Decent
Mailtrap's free plan allows up to 200 free emails per day. Maximum of 1000 per month for free. Mailtrap pricing.
Mailtrap's first pricing plan starts with sending up to 10,000 emails per month for $15/m.

MailerSend - Go to guide

Speed of setup: 3/5 Slow because of the verification process.
Ease of setup: 5/5 Easy
There is an approval process to send more than 100 emails and to use a paid plan.
MailerSend's free plan allows up to 3,000 emails per month for free. Extra usage is $1.00 per 1000 emails. MailerSend pricing.
MailerSend's first pricing plan starts with sending up to 50,000 emails per month for $35/m.

Resend - Go to guide

Resend is very fast and easy to set up, but it does require adding an MX record to your domain DNS. If you already have an email account such as Google Workspace or similar configured on your domain, read their guide to check to see if it will cause conflict. If so, use a different SMTP provider.

Speed of setup: 5/5 Fast
Ease of setup: 4/5 Decent
Resend's free plan allows up to 100 emails per day for free. Maximum of 3000 per month for free. Resend's pricing
Resend's first pricing plan starts at 50,000 emails per month for $20/m.

SendGrid - Go to guide

NOT RECOMMENDED to use SendGrid SMTP API: SendGrid SMTP has recently added a total lifetime for their SMTP API key of 5000 email sends. Once you reach this, you will need to create a new API key to get another 5000. Their normal API does not have a limit, and we are soon releasing the ability to connect the API key directly. You can upgrade to this once it has been released so that you don't have a limit of 5000.

Speed of setup: 5/5 Fast
Ease of setup: 5/5 Fast
SendGrid's free plan allows up to 100 free emails per day. Maximum of 3000 per month for free. Pricing pans.
SendGrid's first pricing plan starts with sending up to 50,000 emails per month for $19.95/m.

Other options

There are plenty of other platforms that allow SMTP sending. Here are some listed below:
Amazon SES
Mailgun
SMTP.com
Mailjet
Sendpost

Services that do not support SMTP

Klaviyo
Omnisend
Sender

Updated on: 23/01/2025