Editor’s note: the instructions here may be out of date. If you’re interested in updating it, contact us on Fedora Discussion.
Gmail is a popular email service and web client for browsing, receiving, and sending email. Gmail is used by billions of people across the world. It’s one of the simplest, most accessible email services even with being full of features. Did you know that it is possible to read and reply to other email services directly from Gmail? I’ve been doing this for years. Here is how to do it with your Fedora (fedoraproject.org) email alias.
Using your Fedora email alias
If you are a Fedora contributor that is a member of the CLA signature group and one other group, you have access to FedoraPeople.org and receive a few other services. One of these includes email forwarding to a fedoraproject.org email alias. Once you meet the group requirement, email forwarding will start working to <username>@fedoraproject.org to the email you registered with.
If you use Gmail’s web interface for your email, it is possible to set it up to work with outgoing mail as well. Before getting started, you should make sure the email you use for your FAS account is the Gmail you want to use. With a few simple steps, you can get outgoing mail working too.
Setting up outgoing mail with email alias
Log in and open your Gmail.
Click on the gear icon in the corner. Click on settings.
Go to the “Accounts and Import” tab in the settings menu.
Click on “Add another email you own“.
Enter your name and your fedoraproject.org email address here. The email address will be the same name as your username in FAS. Leave “Treat as an alias” option checked. Mine is shown below as an example.
Now, you will be prompted to enter the SMTP settings for the email alias.
Clear out the defaults and fill in the following info for your account.
- SMTP: smtp.gmail.com
- Username: youremail@gmail.com
- Password: <your Gmail password>
Make sure to use a secured connection over TLS.
Important! You might get an error here. In most cases, this is because Gmail is cracking down on less secure apps. However, the tool that they themselves use to import third party emails isn’t secure enough to meet the criteria for more secure apps. Ironic, I know. If you receive this error, you will need to change a setting in your Google account.
You can go here to allow access for “less secure” apps, but do this at your own risk. Usually it is not a concern, but it is worth taking into consideration. You might also want to consider using two-factor authentication.
Testing your outgoing email alias
On doing all this successfully, Gmail will send a confirmation email to your Fedora email. If you’ve got your email setup properly, this will be forwarded to your Gmail inbox.
Boom! There it is. Click on the link in the email and confirm ownership of the address.
Test out the new setup. Just send yourself (the Gmail address) a test message from the Fedora email. Click on the “From” field to toggle the sender email to select the email to send from.
Ta-da! Yes, there it is in our inbox.
Bonus! If you’re into the new Inbox app by Google, this works on there as well.
This post was drafted from the result of a productive discussion that I had on #fedora-commops with jflory7 and masetrax. Thanks guys.
Justin W. Flory, my possible mentor for GSoC, told me that he uses a third party service called Mailgun to handle outgoing SMTP. There are many ways to do it, but here’s how to do it directly from Gmail.
March 23, 2016 — 01:47
Thanks for this guide, very handy – it never crossed my mind to simply use the gmail SMTP server.
If you’re using a Google Apps gmail account, your domain administrator will also have to enable “Allow per-user outbound gateways” under Apps > Google Apps > Settings for Gmail > Advanced Settings in order for this to work.
March 24, 2016 — 07:45
While being well on the content and the form, the article kinda leave me a sad taste in the mouth. Seeing something about using a proprietary software on the fedora blog, without even mentioning that this is proprietary or anything is a bit shocking.
I do not think it would have been hard to find a angle that promote a bit more our values of freedom in the intro and overall motivation. For example, say “gmail is popular, but you are dependent on it not deciding to do some kind of censorship or anything, so we will see how you can use a email that would allow you to retain a bit of freedom if you move”, and follow up by a article on how to migrate out using the export feature).
March 24, 2016 — 07:53
Hi Michael, thanks for leaving your feedback. While Gmail is a proprietary service and there is without question not much openness about it, it is a method that many people use, usually those who already have addresses with Gmail (such as for this example to work, one would already have to have a Gmail address anyways). When I was editing, I hadn’t given much consideration towards recommending using the fedoraproject.org email full-time since it’s not really intended for that purpose as it’s just an alias.
Nonetheless, I see the logic you are using and I agree that it’s an important detail to not overlook. If an author is willing, it might be a good idea to create a write-up on a personal blog or even the Fedora Magazine about how to migrate out of Gmail and into a more open option.
June 17, 2016 — 13:00
I owned my email services using roundcube, How I can setup fedora email alias with my email server?
June 17, 2016 — 13:08
Hard to say. You will need to see if Roundcube supports using alias addresses. It may or may not have this capability.
June 20, 2016 — 16:34
How to change my username of mail list? Seem it can’t change at https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/accounts/mailmansettings/
June 20, 2016 — 16:38
Not sure about your specific problem… you might want to ask in #fedora-admin on IRC.
March 29, 2016 — 08:45
You don’t need to enable the less secure authentication method in Gmail, just go to https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords and create a specific password for this task.
April 17, 2016 — 02:05
I kept on getting an error but enabling https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha seem to stop it.
May 29, 2016 — 11:20
Hi ,
I have followed all the above steps and added @fedoraproject.org alias mail too till verification step. When i click on verify by mail,i am getting a failure message. Loks like below:
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
XXXXXX@fedoraproject.org
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the server for the recipient domain fedoraproject.org by mx1.redhat.com. [209.132.183.28].
The error that the other server returned was:
550 5.1.1 : Recipient address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table
++++++++++++++++++++
How to configure ..
Help me
May 31, 2016 — 14:44
Hi! In order for your Fedora Project email alias to work, you will need to make sure you are in one additional group other than the FPCL agreement group in the Fedora Account System (FAS). If you meet this requirement, you should stop by #fedora-admin on freenode and see if a member of the Infrastructure team can help you out.
July 21, 2016 — 08:07
Hi, I tried following your article but every time I am stuck with this.
Authentication failed. Please check your username/password.
[Server response: DNS Error: 14587473 DNS type ‘aaaa’ lookup of smtp.fedoraproject.org responded with code NXDOMAIN 14587473 DNS type ‘a’ lookup of smtp.fedoraproject.org responded with code NXDOMAIN code(0) ]
July 22, 2016 — 15:42
It looks like you’re trying to use an SMTP server that’s not Gmail. Also, make sure your account meets the requirements to use an alias.
August 23, 2016 — 06:37
I have problems when I want to put my @fedora.org alias in my gmail. An error message is desplayed .. What I can do..
Autenticación fallida. Revisa tu nombre de usuario y tu contraseña.
[Respuesta del servidor: 534-5.7.14 Please log in via your web browser and 534-5.7.14 then try again. 534-5.7.14 Learn more at 534 5.7.14 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78754 j6sm478817uad.4 – gsmtp code(534) ]
August 24, 2016 — 02:10
Hi Alonso, are you sure that you are CLA+1 status in the Fedora Account System?
August 26, 2016 — 01:55
Hi. I fix the issue i had with Gmail.
First i get error with Username and Password. I delete the account and start again from zero. Then I got another error:
534-5.7.14 Please log in via your web browser and
534-5.7.14 then try again.
With a link to “Learn more” (https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78754)
There are several tips there, but one i didn’t try before:
https://accounts.google.com/b/0/DisplayUnlockCaptcha
I’m not pretty sure what it does, it looks like it generate an internal token for the “app”. Once I click “Continue”, the email alias works for sent emails.
Notice that this one is different from “Less secure apps” (https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps).
I hope this help!
February 13, 2017 — 20:56
And it’s important to note that if you change your gmail password, you need to update the link between you email and your alias. You can do this by editing the account in the “Accounts and Import” section of gmail settings.
June 18, 2018 — 05:00
Thank you!