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Glam Journal

How do I enable SMTP Authentication in WordPress?

Author

Elijah King

Updated on March 05, 2026

How do I enable SMTP Authentication in WordPress?

Option 1 — Using the Setup Wizard

  1. Navigate to the WP MAIL SMTP > Settings page.
  2. Click the Launch Setup Wizard button.
  3. Click the Let’s Get Started button.
  4. Select Other SMTP.
  5. The next page lists all of your configuration options in different sections.
  6. SMTP settings.
  7. Enable Authentication – toggle this option.

How do I fix SMTP authentication error?

Fix SMTP Server error in Email

  1. Open your email client program (Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora or Windows Mail)
  2. Click “Accounts” in the “Tools” menu.
  3. Click on your email account then click “Properties” button.
  4. Click “General” tab.
  5. Ensure that the “E-mail address” is your valid address for this account.
  6. Click “Servers” tab.

What does SMTP error could not authenticate mean?

“smtp error: could not authenticate” is a common error when users send emails via PHPMailer using SMTP authentication. This error occurs when the application can’t establish an SMTP connection to the mail server.

How do I use SMTP email in WordPress?

Here are the steps to configure the SMTP server on WordPress:

  1. Navigate to your hosting account, then create a new email account for your WordPress site.
  2. Write down the SMTP server name and port information.
  3. Moving onto WordPress, install and activate the Easy WP SMTP plugin.

Where are WordPress SMTP settings?

If you haven’t already, be sure to install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin. Once WP Mail SMTP is installed and activated, click on WP Mail SMTP » Settings in the left WordPress menu to see the plugin’s settings.

How do I configure SMTP?

To set up your SMTP settings:

  1. Access your SMTP Settings.
  2. Enable “Use custom SMTP server”
  3. Set up your Host.
  4. Enter the applicable Port to match your Host.
  5. Enter your Username.
  6. Enter your Password.
  7. Optional: Select Require TLS/SSL.

How do I authenticate SMTP?

How to configure SMTP authentication

  1. Right-click on the context menu of your e-mail account and click on “Settings”
  2. Navigate to “Outgoing server (SMTP)” select your mail server and click “Edit”
  3. Activate the option “Use username and password” and enter your e-mail address.
  4. Confirm the settings with “OK”

Why is my SMTP server not working?

Maybe you configured your mail client with a wrong outgoing server name: have a look at our list of SMTP and POP providers to double check it, or contact the provider. Firewall or antivirus issues. Make sure that you have an exception rule for your SMTP service in your firewall, proxy service or antivirus settings.

What does could not authenticate mean?

Could not authenticate your SMTP account. This means we were able to connect to your SMTP host, but were not able to proceed using the email/password in the settings. Typically this error is returned when the email or password is not correct or is not what the SMTP host is expecting.

What is WP Mail SMTP plugin?

WP Mail SMTP is the best WordPress SMTP plugin on the market. It allows you to easily send all your WordPress emails using an SMTP server. The easiest fix for this issue is to use SMTP to send WordPress emails. SMTP stands for “secure mail transfer protocol”, and it is pretty much the standard way to send emails.

How do I enable SMTP authentication?

Click the button More Settings… in the lower right-hand corner. The Internet Email Settings box appears. Click on the tab Outgoing Server. Click the tick box “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication”, and ensure that the circle-box “Use same settings as my incoming mail server” is selected.

How do I set up a SMTP server?

What is SMTP error SMTP could not authenticate?

SMTP Error: Could not authenticate. The error ‘Could not authenticate’ can have a lot of potential issues, even when the username/password is correct. From the error log, it seems you’re using port 587 without encryption.

Why am I getting SMTP error on debug output?

The error on the debug output is broad and indicates that the plugin is unable to contact the SMTP server, your SMTP settings look correct but you’re still having issues. This can be due to many reasons such as DNS failure, firewall restriction on the server, etc.

What are the SMTP errors in 2019-11-22?

2019-11-22 12:11:48 SMTP ERROR: Password command failed: 535 Incorrect authentication data SMTP Error: Could not authenticate. 2019-11-22 12:11:48 SERVER -> CLIENT: 221 vps.intechcentre.net closing connection

Could not authenticate with port 587?

The error ‘Could not authenticate’ can have a lot of potential issues, even when the username/password is correct. From the error log, it seems you’re using port 587 without encryption. Please set encryption to TLS, and try resending the email. I hope this helps!