WireMail: Gmail

Enables using the Google OAuth2 API for sending email in ProcessWire. Once installed and configured, any email sent by ProcessWire is sent by Gmail.

You can also read this documentation online in this blog post about WireMailGmail.

Overview

Benefits

The benefits of using Gmail are likely not a mystery—it’s about as reliable as it gets when it comes to sending email, among numerous benefits. So we’ll instead focus on the benefits of using this particular module relative to using SMTP.

The OAuth2 API is the way Google would prefer that you send email through Gmail. Gmail also supports sending via SMTP, but only if you turn on the setting in your Google account for “enable access for insecure apps”. Since doing that isn’t ideal, this module provides a way to send email the way Google prefers that you do. Presumably this is more safe, secure and reliable as a long term solution.

Drawbacks

Most of the Google services use the OAuth2 API, and the biggest drawback is just that it requires more setup on your part. It’s not as simple as copying/pasting a few email server settings into the field. Though it can still all be done from the browser, but just takes a few extra steps. In particular, you’ll need the ProcessWire GoogleClientAPI module installed and configured before you can use this WireMailGmail module. This is Step 1 in our installation instructions below.

Other considerations

When using Gmail for sending your website’s email, consider that it requires the Gmail account to be the “from” email address for any messages sent. You cannot use it to send emails with a “from” address that is something you are not authenticated for. Meaning, you can’t spoof addresses. Though that’s both a benefit and a drawback, depending on what your expectations are. However, you do have full control over the from “name” and “reply-to”. So the actual “from” email address may never actually be seen by the email recipients.

You probably don’t want to use a Gmail account for sending thousands of bulk messages. I don't know what Gmail's policies are regarding this, but I'm guessing they don't want you doing this. I personally think of Gmail as an excellent and reliable solution primarily for for transactional email, but maybe also for small scale newsletters (though I've not personally used it for that purpose).

Alternatives

One potentially simpler alternative is that you can connect your ProcessWire installation with Gmail using SMTP. Though it does require you “allow insecure apps” access on the Google account. For instructions, see this blog post section on Using Gmail as an SMTP server which discusses setup with both the WireMailSmtp and WireMailPHPMailer modules. Because this is a less secure way of connecting your account with Gmail, you probably want to limit this kind of setup to a Google account that you use only for this particular purpose.

Installation

Step 1:

Please read all of step 1 before proceeding. You must first install and configure the GoogleClientAPI module (by the same author as this one). It has its own installation instructions. In the section where it asks for “scopes”, one of them should be this:

https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.send

Note that when sending email with this module, it will send from whatever Gmail account you authenticated it with. Gmail requires that that account be in the “from” header of any message sent with it. As a result, if you are a web developer, you probably want this to be setup with your client’s account, rather than your own. Or you may want to setup a new Google/Gmail account specifically for this purpose.

Step 2:

• Copy this module’s files into /site/modules/WireMailGmail/.
• In your admin, click to Modules > Refresh.
• On the “Site” tab of your Modules screen, click “Install” for WireMailGmail
• Review and optionally populate the “from” email and name fields. Save.

Step 3:

Test that everything is working by entering an email address in the last field on the configuration screen. It will send a test message to whatever email you enter there. If it encounters errors, they will appear as error notifications in the admin and they will be recorded in Setup > Logs > wire-mail-gmail. If you receieve the test email, then that confirms that everything is working. I also recommend testing in live scenarios on your website if/when possible.

Step 4: (optional)

If WireMailGmail is the only WireMail module you have installed, then you can skip this step. However, if you have multiple WireMail modules installed, and you want WireMailGmail to be the default one used by ProcessWire, then you should add the following to your /site/config.php file:

$config->wireMail('module', 'WireMailGmail');

Have a great day!

Copyright 2019 by Ryan Cramer