Prerequisites
- A Groundmail account with a verified sending domain.
- An SMTP credential: in the Groundmail dashboard, open SMTP and choose Create SMTP credential. The password (
gmsmtp_…) is shown once, so copy it. See SMTP relay. - Admin access to the nopCommerce store.
Everything the store sends through the relay goes out as transactional email, so use it for order, account and notification email. Send opt-in newsletters through the API with category: "newsletter" once your account is approved, and never send cold email.
Add the email account
- In the nopCommerce admin, go to Configuration, then Email accounts, and click Add new.
- Fill in the account:
| nopCommerce field | Value |
|---|---|
| Email address | An address on your verified domain, for example orders@yourdomain.com |
| Email display name | Your store name |
| Host | smtp.groundmail.dev |
| Port | 587 |
| SSL | Off |
| Authentication method | Login/Password |
| User | groundmail |
| Password | Your SMTP credential (gmsmtp_…) |
- Click Save.
Leave SSL unchecked. In nopCommerce, SSL means a TLS connection from the first byte (port 465). With it off, nopCommerce upgrades the connection on port 587 with STARTTLS, which is what the relay expects. Older nopCommerce versions show a Use default credentials checkbox instead of Authentication method: leave it unchecked and fill in the username and password.
Use it for store email
nopCommerce sends each message template from the email account chosen on that template. Go to Content management, then Message templates, open the templates your store uses (for example OrderPlaced.CustomerNotification and ShipmentSent.CustomerNotification), and set Email account to the account you just added. If you have more than one email account, mark this one as the default in the Email accounts list so templates that don't choose an account use it too.
Test it
Groundmail's simulator addresses work over SMTP and never reach a real inbox. Open the email account you added, enter this in Send email to and click Send test email:
delivered@simulator.groundmail.devnopCommerce shows a success message when the server accepts the message. Then confirm in Groundmail: open Emails in the dashboard, or run:
curl "https://api.groundmail.dev/emails?limit=5" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $GROUNDMAIL_API_KEY"The email appears with the status delivered and "test": true. Use bounce@simulator.groundmail.dev to see a hard bounce. The full list is in Testing.
To test a real order email without emailing a customer, register a test customer with the email delivered@simulator.groundmail.dev and place an order. nopCommerce queues template emails and sends them from a scheduled task, so the email can take a minute to appear. The queued email and any send error show in the admin's message queue.
Troubleshooting
Authentication failed. The username must be exactly groundmail, and the password must be the SMTP credential (gmsmtp_…), not an API key (gm_…). Check Authentication method is Login/Password.
Connection timed out or the TLS handshake fails. Check the host is smtp.groundmail.dev, the port is 587 and SSL is off. If your server blocks outbound port 587, use port 2525 with the same settings.
The message is rejected because of the From address. The account's Email address must use a verified domain on your account. Until then you can only send from the sandbox sender, and only to your own account email.
Test email works but order emails don't arrive. Check the template is active and its Email account is the Groundmail account, and look for send errors on the queued email in the admin's message queue.
A recipient never receives the email. The address may be on your suppression list, usually after a hard bounce. See Suppressions, and create a webhook for email.bounced to get notified.
Sends are deferred. A new account has a daily ramp-up limit, and the Free plan has a daily limit. The relay replies with a temporary error and a retry time. See Sending limits.