SMTP & Server Settings

Learn how to configure your email server connection, sending limits, and error handling behaviors.

To send emails with PDF Mail Engine, you need to configure the connection details for your email provider (like Gmail, Outlook, or your company's mail server).

This page controls how emails are sent (the delivery mechanism). The content of your emails (Subject, Body, etc.) is managed separately in the Template Designer.

Server Connection Settings

Enter the SMTP information provided by your email service. You can usually find these details on your provider's help page.

SMTP Host: The address of the outgoing mail server (e.g., smtp.gmail.com).
SMTP Port: The port number. usually 587 (STARTTLS) or 465 (SSL).
Username: Your login ID (often your full email address).
Password: Your email password.
Use SSL/TLS: We highly recommend keeping this ON for secure communication.

Check Your Connection

After entering your details, click the Test Connection button. We'll run a quick check to ensure we can reach the server with your credentials.

Recommended Settings for Common Services

Here are the typical settings for popular providers.

Gmail

Due to Google's security policies, you may need an App Password instead of your regular login password.

Host: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 587
Username: Your Gmail address
Password: App Password (Generated in your Google Account)
- Your standard password might cause a connection error. See Google's guide on how to generate an App Password.

Outlook.com / Hotmail

Host: smtp-mail.outlook.com
Port: 587
Username: Your email address
Password: Your login password

Sending Rate Limits

To avoid being marked as spam or blocked by your provider, you can control the speed at which emails are sent. Configure this according to your provider's limits.

Configuration Modes

Wait Time (Seconds)
- Waits for a specific number of seconds after every email.
- Example: A setting of 5.0 will pause for 5 seconds between each email.
Max per Minute
- Sets a cap on the total number of emails sent in one minute.
- The system automatically calculates the necessary pause. Example: 20 emails/minute means sending one email every 3 seconds.
Unlimited
- Sends emails as fast as possible with no artificial delay.
- Use this only if you are using a local server or a service with high throughput limits.

Action on Error

This setting controls what happens to the remaining batch if a single email fails to send (e.g., invalid address or connection timeout).

Stop on Error
- Pauses the entire process immediately. You can fix the issue and resume later.
Skip & Continue
- Marks the failed email as "Error" but continues processing the rest of the list.
- Useful for unattended overnight batches where you don't want one bad address to stop everything.
Abort Batch
- Completely cancels the current batch operation.

Retry Limit

If a temporary network error occurs, the system can try again before giving up. A setting of 3 retries is usually sufficient for most situations.