What is the difference between Office 365, SMTP and Gmail Email Settings?

Acctivate may be configured to send email through Microsoft 365, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) or Gmail API (Gmail). When choosing which protocol to use, it’s important to understand the basic differences between the three.

Compare and Contrast Oauth and SMTP Email Settings

Acctivate may be configured to send email through Office 365, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and Gmail API (Gmail) When choosing which protocol to use, it’s important to understand the basic differences between the three. This article will briefly explain how SMTP, O365 and Gmail API email protocols work, as well as when it’s beneficial to use one over the other two.

Microsoft 365

How it works:
Acctivate can connect directly to your O365 account via an OAuth2 connection. Emails are sent from Acctivate through your Office account. You do not need to download anything to make it run. All you need to do is click on the "Connect" button in email settings and sign into your Office account.

Benefits of Microsoft 365

  • Messages sent from Acctivate can be seen in your sent items in Office 365.
  • Direct secured connection through OAuth2
  • Simplified setup.

Disadvantages of Microsoft 365

  • Only works for companies using Office 365 email.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

How it works:
Emails sent from Acctivate are pushed directly through to your email server. This setting does not require a specific email provider but may require some additional configuration in Acctivate in order to be used. You will need to specify the email server address, encryption type, and individual login credentials for each user’s email address before sending email from Acctivate.

Benefits of SMTP

  • Independent of an email client
  • No additional security settings to configure.
  • Can be used with any email service.

Disadvantages of SMTP

  • SMTP does not automatically save copies of sent emails.
  • Used exclusively for sending email, not receiving.
  • Setup can be complex.

Gmail API (Gmail)

How it works:

Acctivate can connect directly to your Gmail account via an OAuth2 connection. Emails are sent from Acctivate through your Gmail account. You do not need to download anything to make it run. All you need to do is click on the "Connect" button in email settings and sign into your Gmail account.

Benefits of Gmail

  • Direct secured connection through OAuth2
  • Easy setup
  • See emails in Gmail.

Disadvantages of Gmail

  • Only usable by companies and users using Gmail.

Choosing an email protocol

For most users, the email protocol of choice is dictated by what email service they use in their email server. For companies using Microsoft 365, you'll want to use the Office 365 direct integration. For companies using Gmail, you'll want to use the Gmail integration. For companies using any other email service such as Yahoo, you'll want to use SMTP.