In this post, I’ll show how to send email using Amazon SES with concrete5. We will walk through how to verify that you own the domain or email address, and then send an email using the Amazon SES console. Finally, we’ll setup the SMTP credentials on concrete5.

What is Amazon SES

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is a cost-effective email service built on the reliable and scalable infrastructure that Amazon.com developed to serve its own customer base. With Amazon SES, you can send transactional email, marketing messages, or any other type of high-quality content to your customers.

Step 1: Enter the Amazon SES Console

• Login to your AWS console.
• Go to Simple Email Service under Customer Engagement.

• Note that, Simple Email Service is not available in Asia Pacific (Tokyo). You may select any other available region. For this post, I’ll select US West (Oregon).

Step 2: Verify Your Domain

Before you can send an email using Amazon SES, you must prove that you own the sender’s email address by verifying the address (or the domain of the address) with Amazon SES. If you are a new user of Amazon SES, you must also verify the recipient’s address, because your account is in a test environment called the Amazon SES sandbox. You can later apply to move out of the sandbox and lift the recipient address limitation which I’ll show on the next. 

• In the left navigation pane of the Amazon SES console, under Identity Management, select Domains.

• Select Verify a New Domain.

• Enter your domain name, check Generate DKIM Settings and then select Verify This Domain.

• Select Use Route53 button. 

• Select Create Record Sets.

• On next page it’ll show the newly added domain name. Click on the name and it’ll show the status of “Verification” and “DKIM” is “pending verification”. You can access also from Identity Management> Domains> your-domain.com

• Verify it from the domain owner email .
• After successful verification it’ll show the status as verified.

Step 3: Create SMTP Credentials

• Select SMTP Settings under Email Sending on Amazon SES.
• Click on Create My SMTP Credentials.

• It will ask to create a IAM User on next page. You can choose an User Name or click on Create button with default user name.

• You’ll get user information as the screenshot. Download this information by clicking on  Download Credentials button and don’t lose it. 

• Select Close.

Step 4: Cancel The Sandbox State

• Select Sending Statistics under Email Sending.
• Select Request a Sending Limit Increase.

• Fill out the form on next step and submit.
• It may takes up to 72 hours. But usually it’s verified within 24 hours.

Step 5: concrete5 Setting

• Visit your concrete5 site email settings page. System & Settings > Email > SMTP Method.

• Select External SMTP Server.
• Use the credentials received from previous step. 
  • Mail Server: email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com
  • Username: username_from_previous_step
  • Password: password_from_previous_step
  • Encryption: TLS
  • Port: Leave blank for default or use your custom port.
  • Message per connection: Leave blank

• Click Save.
• Check is it working from Test Setting.