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I would like to use the built in email methods that Meteor provides, but I need my app to run on Heroku and use the smtp endpoint of Amazon SES to transport my message.

I'm using the Meteorite build pack and the accounts-password package.

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waiting for time limit to answer my own question - until then, answer is here gist.github.com/4560017 –  nate-strauser Jan 17 '13 at 21:38
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2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

Follow instructions below to get meteor emails sending correctly from heroku using amazon ses

1) set up smtp access via aws console, get your smtp credentials

2) using a javascript console (chrome dev tools / firebug) run



to encode the username/password for use in your smtp url

3) take resulting strings to build your smtp url like so


4) set the MAIL_URL variable to tell meteor to use this method for sending emails

heroku config:add MAIL_URL=YOUR_SMTP_URL

(do not surrond the url with qoutes)

5) set sender to be a SES verified sender within your meteor app via

Accounts.emailTemplates.from = "SENDER_NAME <SENDER_EMAIL>";

That will allow Meteor default email methods to function properly.

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In addition to what you've suggested in your gist you could also use Meteor.http methods with SES API and send a POST/GET request.

Full API docs at http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/QueryInterface.Examples.html

Of course this is a manual solution, and wont use the built in meteor mail method. It can however be corrected by redefining the mail function via Email.send = function(...

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true - could even use an npm module like npmjs.org/package/node-ses to avoid having to manually interact with the API - still doesnt quite give the native 'it just works' feeling that setting ses as smtp server does –  nate-strauser Jan 17 '13 at 22:35
+ the smtp server gets the dkim issue sorted out –  Akshat Jan 17 '13 at 22:37
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