Sending emails via Google GMail

Configure your GMail account

When using GMail to send emails from College Office, we highly recommend that you setup 2-factor authentication in your Google GMail account. If you enable 2-factor authentication on your Google account you must generate an application password to be used by College Office in place of your actual password. The steps are as follows:

• Log in to your Google account: Account > Security
• Under the section Signing in to Google click App passwords, then sign in again to confirm it's you.
• Scroll down to Select app, click on the drop-down box and select Other (custom name). Give this app password a name, e.g. "College Office" and then click Generate. Copy the generated password and use it as the password in your College Office SMTP settings instead of your actual GMail password.
• See video tutorial

Configure College Office to use GMail

From within College Office click Setup -> My Institution -> Custom and then click on each of the following fields to set their value:

• SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com
• SMTP Port: 587
• SMTP Encrypted: Yes
• SMTP Account: enter the email address of your GMail account.
• SMTP Password: enter the application password that was previously generated for College Office. If you are not using 2-factor authentication (not recommended), enter your actual GMail password.

Note:

If you do not configure your GMail account to use 2 steps authentication, you must then grant what Google calls Less secure app access by setting that feature On from the Account > Security page of your GMail account. This is only a temporary solution though as this setting will no longer be available after May 30 2022.