Sending accounts

Optcatch sends from your own mailboxes and email services. Connect as many accounts as you like; each has its own daily limit and sending speed, and campaigns rotate across them.

Connect an account

Go to Optcatch → Settings. Under Sending Accounts, click Add sending account and choose your provider.

Google / Gmail

For a personal Gmail or Google Workspace mailbox. Two methods:

Method A: Sign in with Google (OAuth 2.0, recommended). No account password is stored and tokens refresh automatically.

  1. In Google Cloud Console, create or select a project and configure the OAuth consent screen.
  2. Under Credentials, choose Create Credentials → OAuth client ID, application type Web application.
  3. Add the Authorized Redirect URI shown in Optcatch Settings. It looks like https://your-site/wp-admin/admin.php?page=optcatch-settings&action=optcatch_google_oauth_callback.
  4. Paste the Client ID and Client Secret into Optcatch and click Sign in with Google / Connect.

Method B: App Password (quick setup). No Google Cloud project needed.

  1. Make sure 2-Step Verification is on in your Google Account security settings.
  2. Search for App passwords in your Google Account and create one. Copy the 16-character code.
  3. In Optcatch, choose App Password (Legacy SMTP), enter your Gmail address, paste the code and save.

Microsoft 365 / Outlook

Method A: Microsoft Entra ID / Azure Portal (OAuth 2.0, recommended, required for Microsoft 365).

  1. In Azure Portal, open App registrations → New registration and name the app.
  2. Under Supported account types, select accounts in any organizational directory and personal Microsoft accounts (or your own organization).
  3. Under Redirect URI, select Web and paste the Redirect URI shown in Optcatch Settings (ending in action=optcatch_microsoft_oauth_callback).
  4. Copy the Application (Client) ID from the Overview page.
  5. Under Certificates & secrets → New client secret, copy the secret Value (not the Secret ID).
  6. Paste both into Optcatch and click Sign in with Microsoft / Connect.

Method B: Basic SMTP. For Outlook.com / Hotmail, or Microsoft 365 tenants where an admin has enabled Authenticated SMTP. Select Basic SMTP (Legacy Password), enter the address and the password (or an app password if 2FA is on).

Twilio SendGrid (REST API)

  1. In the SendGrid dashboard, go to Settings → API Keys.
  2. Click Create API Key, choose Restricted Access and enable Mail Send.
  3. Copy the key (it starts with SG.) and paste it into Optcatch.

Custom SMTP

Any standard email service (Amazon SES, Brevo, SendPulse, Postmark, Mailgun) or your host's mail server.

  • SMTP host: for example smtp-relay.brevo.com or mail.yourdomain.com.
  • Port and encryption: 587 with TLS (recommended) or 465 with SSL.
  • Username and password: your SMTP credentials.

Sender identity

Inside each account card, click + Add sender email to set what recipients see:

  • From Name: your brand or your own name, for example “Sarah from Acme”.
  • From Email: use the address of the account you connected.

Don't send a gmail.com or outlook.com From address through SMTP or SendGrid

A @gmail.com, @outlook.com or @yahoo.com address is fine when you send through that provider's own account. On a custom SMTP server or SendGrid, use an address at your own domain: otherwise the provider's DMARC policy marks the mail as forged and it is rejected or lands in spam.

Daily limit and sending speed

Every account has two controls you set yourself:

SettingWhat it does
Daily Sending LimitMaximum emails per day for this account. Enter 0 for unlimited. For example 500 for a standard Gmail account or 2,000 for Google Workspace.
Sending Speed (Per Minute)Emails sent per batch, about every minute. Default 5. The daily limit is also spread across the day: in any hour the account sends at most its daily limit ÷ 24 plus this number, so a day's allowance never goes out in one burst.
  • On a new address, start low (for example 50 a day) and raise the limit yourself over two to four weeks.
  • If a campaign has more recipients than today's limit, the rest go out automatically after the daily reset. Raising the limit lets a waiting campaign continue right away.
  • When a provider starts rejecting mail, the account is paused automatically (circuit breaker).
  • You can change both settings at any time; the remaining allowance for the day is recalculated straight away.

Automated warm-up Pro

Optcatch Pro ramps an account's daily volume up for you, and only after a day has actually used most of its allowance. See Warm-up.

Rotation

Connect several accounts and campaigns are distributed across them, each within its own daily limit, so no single mailbox hits its provider's limit. Within an account, several sender emails take turns (round-robin).

  • Include this account in rotation on an account card, and Include this email in rotation on a sender email, control what is used.
  • Multiple sending accounts and rotation are included in the free version.

Test email and site-wide mail

  1. On the Settings page, enter your own address and click Send Test Email.
  2. Check that it lands in your inbox with the right From name and address.
  3. In Gmail, open the message menu → Show original and confirm SPF: PASS and DKIM: PASS.

The option Use Primary Sending Account for all WordPress email is on by default: notifications from your form plugins, theme and WordPress itself (password resets, store orders) are delivered through your authenticated account too. Uncheck it only if you use a separate SMTP plugin.

Background delivery

Campaigns go out in paced background batches, driven by WordPress cron. As a built-in fallback, visits to your site or admin also advance sending when cron has fallen behind, including on servers where cron is blocked. Both depend on traffic: WordPress cron itself only runs when someone loads a page. For reliable delivery on a quiet site, or where WP-Cron is disabled, set up a real server cron or an external cron service that calls the tick URL below.

  • Settings → Background delivery shows the live status. Click Re-check now to test it.
  • Process Queue Now on the Campaigns screen runs due jobs immediately.

If the status stays red, or your site gets little traffic, ask your host to run a server cron every minute that calls the token-protected tick URL. Settings shows the exact command with your site's token:

* * * * * curl -s -o /dev/null -H "X-Optcatch-Tick-Token: YOUR_TOKEN" "https://your-site/wp-json/optcatch/v1/tick"

Settings also shows a URL with the token included, for cron services that cannot send headers. With WP-CLI, a server cron can run wp optcatch run-jobs instead.

Troubleshooting

Emails land in spam

Check that your domain has SPF, DKIM and DMARC records; Google and Yahoo require them for inbox delivery. Sending through Google or Microsoft signs your mail with their SPF and DKIM. Check the From address rule above, and lower the daily limit on a new address.

OAuth or app password?

OAuth 2.0 is strongly recommended: Google and Microsoft have largely deprecated password logins, and with OAuth a mailbox password change never breaks your campaigns.

A campaign shows “waiting” for a long time

Check Background delivery in Settings. If WordPress self-request shows failing, your host blocks the site from calling itself; the server cron above fixes delivery regardless. Also check whether the account's daily limit is already used up for today.