With Email by Zapier and SMTP by Zapier, you can send emails in Zaps when something happens in another app. If you want an action to take place in another app when you receive new emails, you can trigger your Zap from new emails.
TipYou can also connect email apps like Gmail and Outlook to send emails in Zaps. View a full list of the email apps you can connect to Zapier.
Email vs SMTP
With Email, Zapier sends the emails on your behalf. With SMTP, Zapier communicates with your mail server, and your mail server sends the emails.
- If you’re on a trial or free Zapier plan:
- You can send up to 5 emails per account per day.
- Emails you send during testing will only go to your Zapier account email address. Once the Zap is published, emails will go to the intended recipients (To, CC, BCC).
- If you’re on a paid plan, you can send up to 10 emails per hour.
- You cannot customize the From email address.
- To comply with CAN-SPAM laws, the "Stop these emails" link cannot be removed.
- Emails sent from a @zapiermail.com email address must be less than 10 MB in size, including attachments.
SMTP
- SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, which is an Internet standard for email transmission available in Microsoft, Google. and Yahoo! products among millions of mail servers worldwide.
- With SMTP, the emails are sent using your own mail server. Zapier communicates with the mail server via SMTP to deliver the data, but your mail server is ultimately sending these emails. If you need more information about email delivery statuses, you have to review your mail server's SMTP logs.
- Zapier only supports either unencrypted (non-TLS on port 2525 etc), and encrypted TLS (STARTTLS over either port 465/587/etc) connections for SMTP. SMTPS over port 465 is not supported.
NotePort 25 will no longer be supported as of February 17, 2025. Learn more in this release note.
Send emails with Email
- In the Zap editor, click the Action step. A dialog box will open.
- In the search box, search for and select Email. The right sidebar will open to the Setup tab.
- Click the Action event field to open the dropdown menu.
- Select Send Outbound Email.
- In the To field, enter the email address you want to send this email to. You can add up to five email addresses.
- In the Subject field, enter a subject line for the email.
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In the Body (HTML or Plain) field, enter the body of the email. You can use HTML formatting or plain text.
- Set up any optional fields that you need for your workflow.
- Click Continue.
- If you want to perform the action live to test the step, click Test step.
- The Data in tab will display the fields and values that you set up in the action step.
- The Data out tab will display the fields and values that your app returns as confirmation.
- If you do not want to test the step live, click Skip test.
Next, you can continue setting up your Zap or turn it on.
Note- For free or trial Zap plans, emails you send during testing will only go to your Zapier account email address. Once the Zap is published, emails will go to the intended recipients (To, CC, BCC).
- To comply with CAN-SPAM laws, every email sent with Email by Zapier will include a Stop these emails link which allows email recipients to unsubscribe. When a recipient clicks this link, your Zap will be turned off. To send emails again, you must turn the Zap back on.
Send emails with SMTP
- In the Zap editor, click the Action step. A dialog box will open.
- In the search box, search for and select SMTP. The right sidebar will open to the Setup tab.
- Click the Action event field to open the dropdown menu.
- Select Send Email.
- Click Sign In.
- A new browser tab or window will open. Here, you'll set up your SMTP connection.
- Host: This will be the URL for your SMTP server. For example, Gmail's is smtp.gmail.com.
- Username: This is typically the username and/or email address you use to log in to your email account
- Password: This is the password you use to log in to your email account
- Use TLS: This is a Yes/No dropdown that determines whether we connect to your account using TLS/SSL. Consult your email provider's SMTP instructions if you aren't sure which you need.
- Port: Zapier lets you choose between Port 587 (default), 80, 110, 465, or 2525. Consult your email provider's SMTP instructions if you aren't sure which you need.
- From Email: If you try connecting and run into problems, try filling in this field with the email address for your SMTP account.
- When you're done, click Yes, Continue to SMTP by Zapier.
- In the To field, enter the email address you want to send this email to. You can add up to five email addresses.
- In the Subject field, enter a subject line for the email.
- In the HTML Body field, enter your email content in HTML formatting. You'll also need to provide a plain text version of the email as a fallback in case the recipient cannot accept HTML.
- Set up any optional fields that you need for your workflow.
- Click Continue.
- If you want to perform the action live to test the step, click Test step.
- The Data in tab will display the fields and values that you set up in the action step.
- The Data out tab will display the fields and values that your app returns as confirmation.
- If you do not want to test the step live, click Skip test.
Next, you can continue setting up your Zap or turn it on.
NoteIf you get an error with "503 5.5.1 RCPT" in the message, this likely means that the email address the Zap was trying to send to was empty or invalid. Double check that you have a valid email address in your trigger test data and Zap history for that Zap, and make changes to the configuration of your Zap if you don't.
Format HTML emails
To style your email you will need to use HTML. Here's some basic quick start formatting HTML markup:
- Paragraph:
<p> This is a paragraph </p> - Links:
<a href="http://www.zapier.com">This is a link</a> - Images:
<img src="imageurl.jpg" alt="alt text" width="104" height="142"> - Bold:
<b>This text is bold</b> - Italic:
<i>This text is italic</i>
Learn more about writing HTML on W3schools.