How to use Gmail to send emails with a WordPress site using any email address

You may have noticed that when your WordPress site sends emails using PHP's default settings, your emails often don't get delivered. The solution to this problem is to use an external SMTP server to do the actual email sending.
Turns out that setting it up to send from your own custom email address is not as simple as it should be, especially if you want a free solution and don't want to pay for an SMTP server.
This is the free solution I use for most of my sites, once you set it up it works like a charm, and you never have to worry about it again.

These same instructions can be used if you just want to set up your Gmail account to send emails from any email address, for example from an address on a domain that you own. Just start from step 5.


TL;DR Summary: set up the free WP Mail SMTP plugin, set up a Gmail account to send email as any email address you want, connect the two.

Step 1: Install the free WordPress plugin: WP Mail SMTP. The easiest way is to go to your WordPress Dashboard, Plugins, Add New, and search for it. This is what it looks like:

Step 2: Create a free Gmail account. You can use your existing account but I prefer to have a separate account that will be used for sending emails from a website. There are some limitations on the number of emails you can send using a Gmail account, so if you expect to be sending a high volume of emails then go with something like Sendgrid (WP Mail SMTP supports a ton of different email senders).

Step 3: Go through WP Mail SMTP's setup wizard and choose Gmail as the provider. There are a few steps you need to go through there to set up an app in your Gmail account, but the instructions they have are good, just follow them. Make sure you're signed in to your new Gmail account when you do this (I do it all in an incognito window to make sure I don't mix up accounts).
When you're done with this you should have your website sending emails using your Gmail as the SMTP sender.

If you don't want to change the email address that Wordpress uses to send, and are fine with sending from your Gmail address, then you're done.

The rest of the steps are how to change the email address that your website uses as the From email address when sending emails.
These instructions are the way to set up a Gmail account to send emails from any email address, for example from an account on a domain you own.

Step 5: Setup your Gmail account to send email from an alias. You first need to be able to send emails from your Gmail account using the email address that you want to use. There are good instructions for this here: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157. I'll cover the important parts:

Step 6: Set up 2-step verification in your Gmail account. You need this in order to create an App Password for your account. Go to https://myaccount.google.com/security and turn on 2FA.

Step 7: Create an App Password. The App Password will be used by Gmail to send outgoing messages from a different email address. Once 2-factor authentication is turned on you'll have the option to create an App Password in the same security section of your Google account. If you still don't see the option go to the URL: https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
Under "App passwords" click Select app and then Mail. Then Select device and then Other. Enter a name and click Generate. Copy that code.

Step 8: Add an account to your Gmail to "Send mail as". The exact instructions to add an email alias are at the same link as in step 5 above https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157. The gist of it is to go to your Gmail account and go to Settings->See all settings. Then go to Accounts and Import. Under Send mail as click on Add another email address. Then fill in your name and the email address you want to use. In the SMTP Server field, enter: smtp.gmail.com, use your Gmail address as the username, and use the App Password you created in the previous step as the password. Gmail will then send you a verification email with a code, copy that code and you're done.

Step 9: Change the email address that WordPress uses to send emails with. Finally, you can go back to your WordPress site and go to WP Mail SMTP, and Settings. Scroll down until you see From Email. You should now have a dropdown where you can finally choose the additional email address you added to your Gmail account as the from email your site will be sending emails from.

How to use the Sendfox API with PHP

Here's some PHP code that shows you how to use Sendfox's API in PHP.
This specific example shows how to add a new contact to a mailing list, but similar code can be used for all their other API endpoints.

To get the Sendfox list id for the list you want to add a contact to, go to your Sendfox mailing lists and click on the list you want.
You'll see its id in the URL after /lists/

How to increase your external microphone's volume for using in a Zoom meeting, podcast, streaming, voice call, or anywhere else

If you have an external microphone but you find that even though you have the volume cranked up all the way it's still not loud enough and you're getting complaints, here's what you can do to boost your mic's volume.

TL;DR Summary: use OBS to add a gain filter that increases your microphone's volume. The audio from OBS is routed to VB-Cable so that you can choose it from any application you want to use your boosted microphone.

Step 1: install OBS. OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is an excellent free and open-source application for Mac and Windows for video recording and live streaming. It lets you do a ton of stuff with video and audio like share your screen while still showing your webcam in a corner, smooth transitions (like the pros!) between showing yourself fullscreen and then showing your desktop, mixing audio from different sources, etc...
The installation itself is quite straightforward, just download the installer from the official site and follow their instructions, nothing special.

Step 2: install VB-Cable. VB-Cable is a free virtual audio cable that you're going to route sound to. Download and install VB-Cable. Then in any application that you want to use that sound you just choose VB-Cable as the source. For example in Zoom, Hangouts, Facetime, Messenger... just choose VB-Cable as the audio source device, instead of choosing your microphone directly.

Step 3: setup OBS to use your microphone. Launch OBS, click on the plus in the OBS Sources pane, and choose "Audio Input Capture". Then choose "Create New", give it a name you'll understand (like the model of your mic), and then choose your microphone as the source device.

Step 4: route your microphone to VB-Cable. Select your new audio source from the sources pane and click on "Filters". In that window click on the plus at the bottom and choose "Audio Monitor". Name it whatever you want (I usually leave it "Audio Monitor") and then choose "VB-Cable" as the device. What this does is send the audio from this device (your microphone) to the VB-Cable virtual audio cable. Don't close the filters window yet.

Step 5: add a gain filter to your microphone. In the same filters window from the previous step, click on the plus at the bottom again and choose "Gain" this time. You can just name it "Gain". This filter is where you'll boost your microphone's volume. Now all you need to do is slide the slider to the right and your mic's volume will increase. BTW you can add a ton of free filters this way to your microphone, for example noise reduction, compression, EQ, etc...

Step 6: That's it. Now just choose VB-Cable as the microphone source in any application. For example in the Zoom settings window, go to Audio and choose VB-Cable as the microphone. You can do the same anywhere on your computer, like in Facebook Messenger on the web, while on an audio or video call open the settings and choose VB-Cable as your device.

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