JavaMail API - Gmail SMPT Server

In all previous chapters we used JangoSMPT server to send emails. In this chapter we will learn about SMPT server provided by Gmail. Gmail (among others) offers use of their public SMTP server free of charge.

Gmail SMTP server details can be found here. As you can see in the details, we can use either TLS or SSL connection to send email via Gmail SMTP server.
The procedure to send email using Gmail SMTP server is similar as explained in chapter Sending Emails, except that we would change the host server. As a pre-requisite the sender email address should be an active gmail account. Let us try an example.

Create Java Class

Create a Java file SendEmailUsingGMailSMTP, contents of which are as below:

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.util.Properties;

import javax.mail.Message;
import javax.mail.MessagingException;
import javax.mail.PasswordAuthentication;
import javax.mail.Session;
import javax.mail.Transport;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;

public class SendEmailUsingGMailSMTP {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      // Recipient's email ID needs to be mentioned.
      String to = "xyz@gmail.com";//change accordingly

      // Sender's email ID needs to be mentioned
      String from = "abc@gmail.com";//change accordingly
      final String username = "abc";//change accordingly
      final String password = "*****";//change accordingly

      // Assuming you are sending email through relay.jangosmtp.net
      String host = "smtp.gmail.com";

      Properties props = new Properties();
      props.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
      props.put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable", "true");
      props.put("mail.smtp.host", host);
      props.put("mail.smtp.port", "587");

      // Get the Session object.
      Session session = Session.getInstance(props,
      new javax.mail.Authenticator() {
         protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
            return new PasswordAuthentication(username, password);
         }
      });

      try {
         // Create a default MimeMessage object.
         Message message = new MimeMessage(session);

         // Set From: header field of the header.
         message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));

         // Set To: header field of the header.
         message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO,
         InternetAddress.parse(to));

         // Set Subject: header field
         message.setSubject("Testing Subject");

         // Now set the actual message
         message.setText("Hello, this is sample for to check send "
            + "email using JavaMailAPI ");

         // Send message
         Transport.send(message);

         System.out.println("Sent message successfully....");

      } catch (MessagingException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
      }
   }
}

Here the host is set as smtp.gmail.com and port is set as 587. Here we have enabled TLS connection.

Compile and Run

Now that our class is ready, let us compile the above class. I've saved the class SendEmailUsingGMailSMTP.java to directory : /home/manisha/JavaMailAPIExercise. We would need the jars javax.mail.jar and activation.jar in the classpath. Execute the command below to compile the class (both the jars are placed in /home/manisha/ directory) from command prompt:

javac -cp /home/manisha/activation.jar:/home/manisha/javax.mail.jar: SendEmailUsingGMailSMTP.java

Now that the class is compiled, execute the below command to run:

java -cp /home/manisha/activation.jar:/home/manisha/javax.mail.jar: SendEmailUsingGMailSMTP

Verify Output

You should see the following message on the command console:

Sent message successfully....