Issues using Gmail SMTP

When using your Gmail SMTP credentials, you may get an error like:

Error Sending: Email failed to send. Error: authorization.failed

Obviously this could happen if your credentials are wrong, so be sure to double check them.

Potential Cause #1

Try using tls: true instead of ssl: true in your email config.

Potential Cause #2

Another reason this could happen is because you have 2-factor/2-step authorization setup. In this case you need to create an app specific password.

• Generate a app specific password here for email here: https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords
• Use this password in your ./config.js (remember to include the spaces between each 4 char set)

Potential Cause #3

Gmail may not allow access to non-Google apps citing security reasons. Change settings in Gmail's My Account->Sign-in & Security https://myaccount.google.com/security?utm_source=OGB&pli=1#connectedapps

• Switch to "Allow less secure apps: ON" which is Off by default

Potential Cause #4

per: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25693280/nodemailer-with-gmail-service-not-working-on-heroku

Google blocked your sign in to use the mailing features due to unknown device (location).

A few step to verify this:

Start your server locally and sends the email. Check your account alerts for unknown sign in.

This can be temporally resolved by: https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

More permanent resolution would be to change your password to a stronger level:

upper case letter + lower case letter + special symbols + numbers

That's it

We hope this was helpful. If you have questions or think this page should be expanded please contribute by opening an issue or updating this page.