Gmail Spam Blocking

After some advice from the wise and good...

A friend has a gmail address that she uses to send regular emails for a running club. She sends to about 100 people on her mailing list and does it from her Android phone/tablet.

As of yesterday google started to reject the emails on its SMTP server because it considered they may be spam. I've found this but it isn't massively helpful (she is going to try filling in the contact form but I don't expect much to happen from that).

Does anyone know any simple way around this (she isn't the most tech savvy of people)? Is there an android app that allows managing of mail lists via google? I have wondered if I should get her to sign up to a basic hosting package with TSOHost and use their SMTP server - would that work (she still needs to send as her google account rather than wanting a new email address at this point).

Any help appreciated.

If she has a broadband connection, she could perhaps create a separate club email account.

She could configure this email account on her PC so that the reply address is her gmail a/c.

Thanks for the reply.

It still needs an SMTP server though to send it through - and google's SMTP servers are blocking the emails. So are you suggesting buying an email service to be able to use their SMTP gateway?

In reply to a post by ian72:

I have wondered if I should get her to sign up to a basic hosting package with TSOHost and use their SMTP server - would that work (she still needs to send as her google account rather than wanting a new email address at this point).

This would work, just need to change the reply-to address to the gmail one, although I would have thought it better to bite the bullet and change to the hosted email account - else you will be dependent on two systems not one.

To be clear, is sender sending from Gmail and some of the recipients are also on Gmail?

In that case, Google believes she's sending spam -- probably because other recipients are clicking the Spam button. Moving hosts will only be a temporary fix, because she's likely to gain a reputation as a spammer at the new service, also.

Google's advice in cases such as this is to not use Gmail for mass emailing, but instead to use Google Groups.

She is using a google address to send but it is bouncing for both google and non-google recipients. I wanted to check if there was anything obvious that might be possible before going down other routes - I don't want to get in the position where I am having to set lots of new stuff up for her and teach her how to use it all, I have enough to do with other things going on.

It sounds like I am probably going to have to try and sort out Google Groups for her but the support is a nightmare as she isn't overly forthcoming with information when there is a problem (ie she IM'd me to tell me google servers had stopped working and it was only when she came around and after 30 minutes decided to show me the bounce emails that I even found what was wrong) - I am going to have to find something as simple as possible so guess it is time I start looking at how google groups work.

Thanks.

Looking at the (fairly detailed) help on bulk sending using gmail, the 1st thing it suggests is "a consistent IP address". If your friend is using a mobile this will be the last thing that will happen & with bulk sending triggers the basic rules the service requires (further info here--->) https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126#authent...

The other aspect is if using the gmail app on any mobile device (tablet or phone) there is nowhere near the amount of functionality compared to browser access to an account. But then using a browser on a mobile device to manage email settings is difficult - far better to use a "real computer" & decent browser (Chrome being the better platform in this situation).

Hope you can overcome this without resorting to paid services which seems like the proverbial sledgehammer & nut situation.

Thanks. She seems to use her phone for most things. She does have a laptop now but I don't think she even has it set up for email as she prefers to use the phone. Probably will be great fun getting her on to a workable solution.

I was assuming that your friend had a broadband (or even dial up) internet connection from an ISP that offered an email service. Alternatively, Hotmail may not have the same restriction.

She has broadband with Sky but doesn't use their email service and it would again mean me setting it up for her and supporting any issues she would have. There are times I really hate being the IT support for everyone I know...

We had a small local group for some short time and were using a bulk remailer.
This only for around 20 people
The recipients that had problems were those on Gmail. The mails or rather worse still just some of them were not getting though.

We abandoned the remailer for sending them out from a personal home broadband type ISP based email account.

I still do an occasional circular from my own email account for 60 people - done by the usual bcc system to hide address. At one stage hotmail receiving address had an 'issue' with receiving these bcc but not with normal cc emails......then the problem disappeared.

I have a hosting package with TSOhost, and using the supplied package (albeit via a 3rd party) for mailing lists, found that Hotmail and AOL were accepting mail, then throwing it away. Perhaps this is a similar thing

From looking at the error when I could on her phone it seemed to be the gmail SMTP server rejecting the sending of the email rather than the gmail recipient rejecting the receipt of the email - but it was getting late at night and I didn't have time to do much analysis.