Sending email in .NET through Gmail

Question

Instead of relying on my host to send an email, I was thinking of sending the email messages using my Gmail account. The emails are personalized emails to the bands I play on my show.

Is it possible to do it?

Answer 1

Be sure to use System.Net.Mail, not the deprecated System.Web.Mail. Doing SSL with System.Web.Mail is a gross mess of hacky extensions.

using System.Net; using System.Net.Mail;  var fromAddress = new MailAddress("[email protected]", "From Name"); var toAddress = new MailAddress("[email protected]", "To Name"); const string fromPassword = "fromPassword"; const string subject = "Subject"; const string body = "Body";  var smtp = new SmtpClient {     Host = "smtp.gmail.com",     Port = 587,     EnableSsl = true,     DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.Network,     UseDefaultCredentials = false,     Credentials = new NetworkCredential(fromAddress.Address, fromPassword) }; using (var message = new MailMessage(fromAddress, toAddress) {     Subject = subject,     Body = body }) {     smtp.Send(message); } 

Additionally go to the Google Account > Security page and look at the Signing in to Google > 2-Step Verification setting.

• If it is enabled, then you have to generate a password allowing .NET to bypass the 2-Step Verification. To do this, click on Signing in to Google > App passwords, select app = Mail, and device = Windows Computer, and finally generate the password. Use the generated password in the fromPassword constant instead of your standard Gmail password.
• If it is disabled, then you have to turn on Less secure app access, which is not recommended! So better enable the 2-Step verification.

Answer 2

The above answer doesn't work. You have to set DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.Network or it will come back with a "client was not authenticated" error. Also it's always a good idea to put a timeout.

Revised code:

using System.Net.Mail; using System.Net;  var fromAddress = new MailAddress("[email protected]", "From Name"); var toAddress = new MailAddress("[email protected]", "To Name"); const string fromPassword = "password"; const string subject = "test"; const string body = "Hey now!!";  var smtp = new SmtpClient {     Host = "smtp.gmail.com",     Port = 587,     EnableSsl = true,     DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.Network,     Credentials = new NetworkCredential(fromAddress.Address, fromPassword),     Timeout = 20000 }; using (var message = new MailMessage(fromAddress, toAddress) {     Subject = subject,     Body = body }) {     smtp.Send(message); }