Sending email via Node.js using nodemailer is not working

Question

I've set up a basic NodeJS server (using the nodemailer module) locally (http://localhost:8080) just so that I can test whether the server can actually send out emails.

If I understand the SMTP option correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong), I can either try to send out an email from my server to someone's email account directly, or I can send the email, still using Node.js, but via an actual email account (in this case my personal Gmail account), i.e using SMTP. This option requires me to login into that acount remotely via NodeJS.

So in the server below I'm actually trying to use NodeJs to send an email from my personal email account to my personal email account.

Here's my simple server :

var nodemailer = require('nodemailer');
var transporter = nodemailer.createTransport("SMTP", {
    service: 'Gmail',
    auth: {
        user: '*my personal Gmail address*',
        pass: '*my personal Gmail password*'
    }
});

var http = require('http');
var httpServer = http.createServer(function (request, response)
{
    transporter.sendMail({
       from: '*my personal Gmail address*',
       to: '*my personal Gmail address*',
       subject: 'hello world!',
       text: 'hello world!'
    });
}).listen(8080);

However, it's not working. I got an email by Google saying :

Google Account: sign-in attempt blocked If this was you You can switch to an app made by Google such as Gmail to access your account (recommended) or change your settings at https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps so that your account is no longer protected by modern security standards.

I couldn't find a solution for the above problem on the nodemailer GitHub page. Does anyone have a solution/suggestion ?

Thanks! :-)

Answer 1

The answer is in the message from google.

• Go to : https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps

• set the Access for less secure apps setting to Enable

For the second part of the problem, and in response to

I'm actually simply following the steps from the nodemailer github page so there are no errors in my code

I will refer you to the nodemailer github page, and this piece of code :

var transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
service: 'Gmail',
auth: {
    user: '[email protected]',
    pass: 'userpass'
}
});

It differs slightly from your code, in the fact that you have : nodemailer.createTransport("SMTP". Remove the SMTP parameter and it works (just tested). Also, why encapsulating it in a http server? the following works :

var nodemailer = require('nodemailer');
var transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    service: 'Gmail',
    auth: {
        user: 'xxx',
        pass: 'xxx'
    }
});

console.log('created');
transporter.sendMail({
from: '[email protected]',
  to: '[email protected]',
  subject: 'hello world!',
  text: 'hello world!'
});

Answer 2

Outdated: refreshToken and accessToken no longer exist in JSON file output

For those who actually want to use OAuth2 / don't want to make the app "less secure", you can achieve this by

1. Search "Gmail API" from the google API console and click "Enable"
2. Follow the steps at https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/quickstart/nodejs. In the quickstart.js file, changing the SCOPES var from ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly'] to ['https://mail.google.com/'] in the quickstart js file provided as suggested in troubleshooting at https://nodemailer.com/smtp/oauth2/
3. After following the steps in (2), the generated JSON file will contain the acessToken, refreshToken, and expires attributes needed in the OAuth2 Examples for Nodemailer

This way you can use OAuth2 authentication like the following

let transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    service: 'Gmail',
    auth: {
        type: 'OAuth2',
        user: '[email protected]',
        clientId: '000000000000-xxx0.apps.googleusercontent.com',
        clientSecret: 'XxxxxXXxX0xxxxxxxx0XXxX0',
        refreshToken: '1/XXxXxsss-xxxXXXXXxXxx0XXXxxXXx0x00xxx',
        accessToken: 'ya29.Xx_XX0xxxxx-xX0X0XxXXxXxXXXxX0x',
        expires: 1484314697598
    }
});

instead of storing your gmail password in plaintext and downgrading the security on your account.

Answer 3

i just set my domain to: smtp.gmail.com and it works. I am using a VPS Vultr.

the code:

const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');
const ejs = require('ejs');
const fs = require('fs');

let transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    host: 'smtp.gmail.com',
    port: 465,
    secure: true,
    auth: {
        user: '[email protected]',
        pass: 'xxx'
    }
});

let mailOptions = {
    from: '"xxx" <[email protected]>',
    to: '[email protected]',
    subject: 'Teste Templete ✔',
    html: ejs.render( fs.readFileSync('e-mail.ejs', 'utf-8') , {mensagem: 'olá, funciona'})
};

transporter.sendMail(mailOptions, (error, info) => {
    if (error) {
        return console.log(error);
    }
    console.log('Message %s sent: %s', info.messageId, info.response);
});

my ejs template (e-mail.ejs):

<html>
    <body>
        <span>Esse é um templete teste</span>
        <p> gerando com o EJS - <%=mensagem%> </p>
    </body>
</html>

Make sure:

• install ejs: npm install ejs --save
• install nodemailer: npm install nodemailer --save
• ping to smtp.gmail.com works: ping smtp.gmail.com
• change [email protected] to your gmail email
• change [email protected] to the email that you want to send a email
• Enable less secure apps
• Disable Captcha temporarily

have a nice day ;)

Answer 4

While the above answers do work, I'd like to point out that you can decrease security from Gmail by the following TWO steps.

STEP #1

Google Account: sign-in attempt blocked If this was you You can switch to an app made by Google such as Gmail to access your account (recommended) or change your settings at https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps so that your account is no longer protected by modern security standards.

STEP #2

In addition to enabling Allow less secure apps, you might also need to navigate to https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha and click continue.