Daninger's SMTP for Amazon SES

A lightweight plugin that sends all WordPress email through Amazon SES using plain SMTP. No API keys, no other providers, no upsells.

Daninger’s SMTP for Amazon SES reconfigures the WordPress wp_mail() function to deliver email through Amazon SES using your SES SMTP credentials. It hooks into phpmailer_init and points PHPMailer at the Amazon SES SMTP endpoint for your region.

This plugin does one thing only. There are no other mailer integrations, no onboarding wizards, no usage tracking, no email logging, and no upsells.

Daninger’s SMTP for Amazon SES is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon Web Services. “Amazon SES” and “Amazon Web Services” are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Features

• Send WordPress email via Amazon SES SMTP
• Simple settings page (enable, region, host, port, encryption, username, password, from email/name, force-from)
• Region helper that auto-fills the correct SES SMTP host
• Secure defaults: port 587, TLS encryption
• Built-in test email form
• Force-from option to override the From address set by other plugins
• SMTP password is stored but never displayed back in the admin

What it does NOT do

• It does not use the AWS SDK or the SES API — it uses plain SMTP only.
• It does not include any other email providers (Gmail, Outlook, Mailgun, SendGrid, Brevo, etc.).

External services

This plugin sends your site’s outgoing email through Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES), a third-party email delivery service operated by Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS). You must supply your own Amazon SES account and SMTP credentials; the plugin does not create an account for you and does not connect to any service operated by the plugin author.

What data is sent, and when: whenever WordPress sends an email (for example password resets, new-user notifications, contact-form messages, or the built-in test email), and the plugin is enabled and configured, it connects over SMTP to the Amazon SES endpoint you specify (e.g. email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com) and transmits that email — including the recipient address, subject, body, headers, and any attachments — to Amazon SES for delivery. Your SMTP username and password are sent to Amazon SES to authenticate the connection. No email or data is sent to Amazon SES unless WordPress itself triggers an email.

The plugin does not collect analytics and does not contact any other external service.

Amazon SES is provided by Amazon Web Services, Inc.:

• Service information: https://aws.amazon.com/ses/
• AWS Service Terms: https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/
• AWS Privacy Notice: https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/

Configuration

• SES Region — must match the region where your SES account is verified.
• SMTP Host — e.g. email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com, email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com, email-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com.
• Port — 587 or 25 for STARTTLS/TLS, 465 or 2465 for SSL.
• Encryption — TLS (recommended), SSL, or None.
• From Email — must be a verified SES identity.