FAQ Category: Mail Server

Postie won’t connect to my mailserver

When you click Test Config Postie tries to connect your your mail server to ensure everything is set up correctly. (Be sure to click Save first if you changed anything!). Unfortunately sometimes the error messages aren’t very clear and you need a way to verify things.

One common issue is that the port you are trying to use is blocked or your mail server isn’t listening on the port. You can verify these conditions by using the telnet command.

Note: You need shell access to the server Postie is installed on.

Connect to your server via RDP, VNC or SSH and open a command/terminal window and type something like the following:

telnet mail.examples.com 110

Substitute the server and port you are trying to verify. If successful you should see something like:

+OK POP3

Type ‘Q’ and press return to tell the mail server you’re done.

For a IMAP (port 143) you should get something like:

*OK Welcome

Type ‘C logout’ and press return to tell the mail server you’re done.

For POP3-SSL or IMAP-SSL you need to use a different command. For example to test if you can get access to Gmail IMAP try:

echo "TAG LOGOUT" | openssl s_client -connect imap.gmail.com:993

For Gmail POP-SSL try:

echo quit | openssl s_client -connect pop.gmail.com:995

Why doesn’t Postie automatically publish my emails when running manually works?

WordPress cron (which Postie relies on) doesn’t run unless a page is accessed on the site. So if you send an email, but nobody accesses the site for 3 days Postie won’t be given the chance to fetch the email and publish the post.

To ensure that Postie runs smoothly on a low or no volume site you need to ensure that a page gets hit (any page is fine). Use something like cron + curl on Linux or install curl on Windows and use the Scheduled Tasks control panel or use one of the online cron services. See this page for more info.

It has been reported that enabling the “alternate” cron has worked for some people.

In your wp-config.php file add:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true); 
define('ALTERNATE_WP_CRON', true);

add this before the line that says “That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.”

GoDaddy Settings

Postie works well with GoDaddy hosting, but you are required to use GoDaddy mail servers (rather than something like Gmail).

  • Protocol: pop3
  • Use Transport Layer Security: no
  • Server: pop.secureserver.net
  • Port: 110
  • Userid: your full email address
  • Password: your password
godaddy-setup

How do I get Postie to check multiple mail accounts?

The answer is “you can’t do that directly”

However, what you can do is have each separate inbox forward their mail to a central mail account which you then configure Postie to check.

For example you have 2 email accounts that you want your users to send email to: askmeaquestion@example.com and news@example.com

You then create a third email account (postie@example.com) that you don’t tell anyone about and your configure both askmeaquestion and news to forward every email to postie@example.com

You then configure Postie to check the postie@example.com email account.

Many people have this arrangement so that emails sent to each account get assigned different categories. To accomplish this you need to purchase the Category Per User AddOn  and follow the directions for configuring Multiple Inboxes.

If you are using Gmail you have a simpler option. With Gmail it will ignore anything after the plus sign (+) so if your email is postie@gmail.com emails to postie+mine@gmail.com and postie+yours@gmail.com will all show up in postie@gmail.com and you can is the Category Per User AddOn to assign different categories.

Office365 Not Working

Microsoft is working towards disabling IMAP & POP when accessing Exchange.

Unfortunately the solution they are proposing requires a high level of administrative access to your Exchange instance and some pretty complicated code from Postie.

The recommended solution is either

a) Don’t use Office365 for your secret Postie email. Use a different provider that supports IMAP or POP.

b) Use an Office365 email, but forward all emails to a different provider that supports IMAP or POP.

GMail Not Working

Starting in early 2022 Google started sending out messages similar to this:

To help keep your account secure, from May 30, 2022, ​​Google no longer supports the use of third-party apps or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google Account using only your username and password.

The solution is to use an “app password”.

  1. Go to https://myaccount.google.com/ and ensure that you are logged in as the same account you are configuring for Postie.
  2. Under “Security”, activate the the “2-steps verification” on the Google account.
  3. Once it’s activated, set “App passwords”, “Select App” to “Mail”, “Select device” to “Other (custom name)”, give it a name (Postie Password) and copy the password generated at the end of the “App passwords” process.
  4. Use the generated password on Postie instead of the Google account password.

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833

Note that you will need to enable 2-Step-Verification for your domain if the App Password option isn’t available.

If this solution doesn’t work for you the solution is either

a) Don’t use GMail for your secret Postie email. Use a different provider that supports IMAP or POP.

b) Use a GMail email, but forward all emails to a different provider that supports IMAP or POP.