Setting Up Google as Your Mail Service Provider
WHMCS can send emails without any additional configuration using PHP mail(). While this works in most cases, other mail providers may give you a better experience and access to additional features.
In addition to the existing SMTP support, WHMCS 8.0 added support for Mailgun, SendGrid, SparkPost, and Google® OAuth with SMTP. WHMCS 8.6 and later also include Microsoft® services. For more information, see:
Set up Google in WHMCS
To configure Google, you will need to create an app in the Google Cloud console and configure the mail provider in WHMCS.
To configure the mail provider:
1. In the Admin Area, go to the Mail tab at Configuration > System Settings > General Settings.
2. Click Configure Mail Provider.
3. Select SMTP as your Mail Provider and choose a Mail Encoding.
4. Select Google as your Service Provider.
5. Enter smtp.gmail.com for the SMTP Host and 465 for the SMTP Port.
6. Select Oauth2 for SMTP Authentication.
7. For SMTP Username, enter the Gmail™ address that you will be using in your application.
For steps to generate the Client ID and Client Secret in Google, see the Create your Google Application section below.
8. Copy-and-paste the Client ID and Client Secret from the Google Cloud Console into the appropriate boxes in the confirmation message.
9. You can also edit them by going to Credentials and clicking the edit icon for the appropriate OAuth 2.0 Client IDs row:
10. Next to Connection Token, click Connect. (Connection Token will be empty.)
11. Under Choose an account, select the account that you used to create the app.
12. Follow the prompts to approve access for your account.
If you see a This app isn't verified. error, click Advanced and then click Go to at the bottom of the window.
The system will automatically enter a token in Connection Token.
13. To ensure that your configuration works, click Test Configuration.
14. Click Save. The system will test your configuration again when you save.
Create your Google application
To use Google as your service provider, you will need to create an app and then create an associated client ID. This will let you connect to Google via WHMCS.
If you have already used Google Cloud's console, you may not need to perform some of these steps, or interfaces may not look like the screenshots below.
First, create the app:
1. Log in to the Google Cloud console. If you haven't before, select your country and agree to Google's Terms of Service.
2. Go to APIs and Services > Credentials.
3. Click Create Credentials and select OAuth client ID.
4. Click Configure Consent Screen.
5. Select External for User Type.
Selecting this allows anyone to use the generated client ID after a verification process. However, when creating a client ID that is only for WHMCS, you do not need verification.
6. Click Create.
7. Enter a new App name.
8. Select a User support email address.
9. Click Add Domain and enter the domain for your WHMCS installation.
10. Click Save and Continue.
11. Click Add or Remove Scopes and add the following scopes:
- userinfo.email
- userinfo.profile
- openid
12. Click Save and Continue.
13. For Test users, click Save and Continue without making any changes.
After you create the app, you can create the client ID:
1. In the left sidebar, click Credentials.
2. Click Create Credentials and select OAuth client ID again.
3. For the Application Type, select Web Application.
4. Enter a name for your application.
5. Under Authorized redirect URIs, click Add URI.
6. Enter the Callback URL that displays in WHMCS.
7. Click Create. A confirmation message will appear, with the Client ID and Client Secret to use in the steps above.
You can now continue configuring SMTP with OAuth 2.0 (see the section above).