How to enable email functionality at droplet
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Heya, @5f21ced7a9dd4fe7af83c7412c563f
SMTP ports 25, 465, and 587 are blocked on Droplets to prevent spam and other abuses on our platform. This block applies to all Droplets by default and includes traffic passing through a Reserved IP address.
Even if SMTP were available, we strongly recommend against running your own mail server, as self-hosted mail servers are difficult to secure and maintain, frequently get flagged as spam, and require constant monitoring to protect your IP address. Dedicated email platforms manage these challenges for you.
To send mail from services hosted on DigitalOcean, we recommend using a third-party email as a service provider.
Regards
Hi there,
Outbound SMTP ports are blocked by default on all new DigitalOcean accounts to prevent spam abuse. This is not something that can be enabled from the control panel.
To request the block to be lifted, go to your control panel and submit a support ticket at https://cloud.digitalocean.com/support. In your ticket mention that you need outbound SMTP for transactional email and briefly describe your use case. They typically ask about your sending volume and whether you have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC set up.
That said, running your own mail server on a Droplet is generally more trouble than it is worth. Deliverability is hard to maintain, IP reputation takes time to build, and you are one spam complaint away from being blacklisted. Most people are better off using a dedicated SMTP service like SendGrid, Mailgun, or Postmark and skipping the port unblock request entirely.
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