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Ask HN: Is there any mail-by-API provider for personal use?
6 points by harrid on Aug 6, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 25 comments
I remember using mailgun a decade ago or so. But every single site I check now requires me to enter a company name or work mail address (no Gmail etc). So where to go when I want to send some simple alert mails to myself when something in my scripts goes wrong?



Isn’t SMTP an API? Why would you pay or complicate things when you can just send email with libraries available in every language?


But Gmail SMTP doesn't work anymore because they disabled 'less secure apps' or something like that


That's absolutely not true. I receive SMS daily that is sent to my Telnyx number in my Gmail account via Gmail SMTP from a pipedream workflow.

Gmail SMTP for small personal use cases is very convenient for something like this. Matrix a nice option, too.


I went back and actually managed to do this. For future readers: it's true that in 2022 Google disabled login with the normal login/pw but you can create app passwords to do this.

Thanks! This was actually the only working solution from at least 15 different sites.


:) hurray. I'm very happy it was helpful. I remember your exact sense of exasperation when my original SMTP provider started doing the same crap as the rest and I felt similar despair.


Assuming you have shell access, why not use mutt or sendmail?


When I'm reading correctly, that's a Unix program. That's a pretty tight constraint and not one I can satisfy


Fastmail has an API [1]

[1] - https://www.fastmail.com/for-developers/integrating-with-fas...


Thanks, that seems doable!

Edit: but not free, ugh. Understandable, but annoying to send a mail every couple of weeks


Try pay-per-message via www.smsapi.com

You will pay circa 10 cents per month if you use it once a month via pre paid


Again requiring a business mail, not for private use.


Why not just use the Gmail API? https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides


> But every single site I check now requires me to enter a company name or work mail address (no Gmail etc).

Which have you checked?


5 or so. All the usual suspects from the sites that list alternatives. I didn't keep a list


AWS SES works nicely and the costs for personal usage will likely be close to 0.


AWS requires a credit card, which is not really a thing in Europe


It does not...


Are you sure? It requires me to enter one upon registration.


A debit card works fine, and even Germans got that far in finance tech.


Available but still far from common. I don't have one and most of my peers don't either.


3,000 emails are included in oracle free tier


smtp2go


Also only for commercial use, not private use


Free plan allows 1000 emails a month, which I'm using for personal server and script alerts.


It explicitly asks for a work mail at signup, blocking Gmail etc




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