# Sending email via mandrill—totally cool! **URL:** \ **Category:** useful info\ **Created:** [June 20, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/sending-email-via-mandrill-totally-cool/65 "2013-06-20T03:39:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lee\_Ars](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/lee_ars/32/2338_2.png) [@Lee\_Ars](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Lee_Ars)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/sending-email-via-mandrill-totally-cool/65/1 "2013-06-20T03:39:45Z")
So, this might come in handy, for anyone actually needing to send email via an application (like Discourse, or really anything server-based). I did a [blog post](http://blog.bigdinosaur.org/postfix-gmail-and-you/) more than a year ago about relaying e-mail through Google Apps/Gmail, but even the low volume of e-mail I’m sending from the [bigdinosaur.org/chroniclesofgeorge.com](http://bigdinosaur.org/chroniclesofgeorge.com) web server occasionally trips something at Google and they block me from sending for a day or two. The solution, which one of the Discourse devs [helpfully pointed out](http://meta.discourse.org/t/configure-for-gmail-google-app/7323/6?u=lee_ars), is [Mandrill](http://mandrill.com/). It’s basically an email relaying service, though there’s a ton more functionality than that. They have paid tiers of use, but the free tier gives you 12,000 e-mails per month, which is waaaaaay more than I need. ![image](http://cog.discourse.group/uploads/cog/438/893560323e0046e2.png) So far, it’s worked _perfectly_. The advantages of relaying through a service like Mandrill rather than simply sending email directly via postfix are numerous; one of the biggest is that you’re far less likely to find yourself on a delivery blacklist if you’re sending email via a big host like Mandrill (same with Google Apps/Gmail, obviously). I’m definitely a fan!