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Email sendersTesting your email setup

Testing your email setup

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What Test Connection actually checks, how to send a test email, where to confirm a send really happened, and what to do when a test email never arrives.

There are three test buttons in the app and they check very different things. Knowing which is which saves a lot of guessing when an email does not turn up.

The tests, side by side

Test Connection Send test email (Email Senders) Send test email (layout editor)
Where SMTP server settings Email Senders page Inside an email layout
What it does Logs in and disconnects Sends a short plain message through the sender you pick Renders your layout with its test variables and sends it
Proves Host, port, encryption and credentials are right The sender can deliver mail at all The layout renders and the server accepts it for delivery
Recorded in History No No - see below No - see below
An email arrives No Yes, if all is well Yes, if all is well

Start with the sender test when you connect a new mailbox or SMTP server, then use the layout test once the sender works.

Sending a test email from a layout

Open an email layout and use Send test email. It renders the layout exactly as a live send would, with your test variables, and sends it through the sender you pick.

The Recipient email is prefilled with the first address under Test email recipients in Settings > Email defaults, or with your store's email when none is set. You can still type any other address. Your Default CC, Default BCC, Default Reply-To and Default From name from Settings apply to a test exactly as they do to a live send, so what arrives is what a customer would get. See Settings.

If the server rejects it, the error appears on screen immediately. That message comes straight from your mail server and is the single most useful thing to send us if you get stuck.

A test email that never arrives

If the app reported success but nothing landed, the message left us and your mail server accepted it. Work through these in order:

  1. Check the spam or junk folder, and any quarantine your provider runs. This is by far the most common answer, especially for a first send from a new setup. See Email deliverability.
  2. Check the from-address matches the account you authenticated with. Many servers accept the login, then silently discard or reject a message claiming to be from a different address.
  3. Wait a few minutes. Some servers greylist an unfamiliar sender, deliberately delaying the first message from a new source.
  4. Try a different recipient, ideally on another provider. If it arrives at one address and not another, the problem is on the receiving side, not yours.
  5. Check your server's own outbound log. Your host can see whether the message was accepted and what happened to it after we handed it over - we can only see the response we got.

What the common errors mean

These come from your mail server, not from us.

Message What it usually means
Connection timeout We could not reach the host at all on that port. Check the hostname and port, and that the server accepts connections from outside your own network.
wrong version number The port and encryption do not match. Port 465 expects SSL; port 587 expects STARTTLS. Getting these the wrong way round produces exactly this error. It can also appear intermittently if the server refuses extra simultaneous connections.
Invalid login / 535 The username or password was rejected. If your provider uses two-factor authentication you usually need an app-specific password rather than your normal one.
554 / all recipients were rejected The server accepted your login but refused the recipient or the from-address.

When sends work sometimes but not always

If History shows a mix of successes and failures on the same sender, and the failures cluster at moments when several emails go out at once, your mail server is most likely limiting how many connections it accepts at the same time. Shared and small-business hosting often allows only a handful.

Two things help:

  • Try port 587 with STARTTLS instead of 465 with SSL. Servers frequently handle concurrency better on 587.
  • Ask your mail host what the concurrent connection and hourly sending limits are on your account, and whether they can raise them.

A send that takes ten seconds or more is also a sign the server is working hard. That is not a problem on its own, but it leaves less headroom when several messages go out together.