We compare the two SMTP servers in terms of convenience for testers who need to quickly and easily set up and test outbound email traffic for a web project on staging.
DebugMail setup for mailcatching and debugging outgoing email traffic
Yahoo Mail SMTP setup for email testing
Pros and cons of services
Features and functionality of services
Conclusion
— Additional Resources
First, let’s look at how both services are integrated into the project.
Setting up DebugMail for mailcatching and debugging outgoing email traffic
DebugMail provides two integration methods, via snippets or credentials. Just a few simple steps and you can begin the testing process:
- Visit debugmail.io and create an account using your preferred credentials (email, Google or GitHub).
- Create a team and project for the specific app or online store where you want to test email.
- Choose between integrating DebugMail with a code snippet or using SMTP credentials:
- Projects →⚙️→ Settings
- If you want to integrate through a code snippet, select the desired technology, copy the generated code, and paste it into your project.
An example snippet for Python technology looks like this:
EMAIL_HOST = "app.debugmail.io"
EMAIL_HOST_USER = "unique-project-login-in-debugmail"
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = "unique-project-password-in-debugmail"
EMAIL_PORT = "25"- If you want to integrate via SMTP credentials, type the host, port, unique login and password in your project code:
Host: app.debugmail.io
Port: 25 or 9025
Login: login-generated-by-debugmail
Pass: pass-generated-by-debugmail
- Done. Now test your email functionality by sending emails and monitoring their reception and content within the DebugMail workspace.
Setting up DebugMail as a SMTP server takes less than 2 minutes.
Setting up Yahoo Mail SMTP for email testing
Yahoo Mail provides its customers with SMTP server settings for outbound mail and similar settings for inbound mail using POP or IMAP. Here, we provide the details that you need to enter into your program’s code to integrate Yahoo Mail as an SMTP server.
To get outgoing email traffic from a web project to your Yahoo mailbox, follow these steps:
- Register an account with Yahoo Mail.
- Navigate to the account settings section and access the «Account Security» options.
- Proceed to «App Passwords» and generate a unique key for SMTP access.
- Configure your web project with the provided SMTP credentials.
Host: mail.yahoo.com (default)
Username: your full Yahoo Mail email address (e.g. peterpeter2023@yahoo.com)
Password: special Yahoo Mail app password (key) (it’s not the password you use to log in to Yahoo Mail)
Port: 465 or 587 (default)
Requires SSL/TLS: Yes (if available)
Authentication: Yes (choose login if multiple options available)- Send a test email and verify its successful delivery.
Pros and cons of services
| DebugMail | Yahoo Mail SMTP | |
|---|---|---|
| Pros | Integration in less than 2 minutes | Widely used and trusted email service provider |
| Teamwork on projects | Simple integration | |
| Free plan + affordable pricing plans | Free service | |
| Unlimited number of test emails per day | ||
| No need to manually sort test emails | ||
| Cons | No spam rating | Cluttering of the actual Yahoo Mailbox |
| Requires setting up email sorting rules or manually moving them | ||
| Limits the number of test emails per day |
Features and functionality of services
Yahoo Mail SMTP offers a reliable way to test and store emails in a real mailbox. To get started, you’ll need to register and link a valid phone number. This method can be difficult if you don’t have an extra test number. Additionally, with a daily limit of up to 500 test emails, it may not meet all your requirements.
Also, I’m not particularly fond of the design and placement of tools on Yahoo Mail. To implement email sending test functionality, you need to navigate through various pages.
Semen Senkevich
Backend Developer at WBT—Global
DebugMail greets users with an intuitively designed interface and a convenient workspace for managing projects. The service provides a convenient solution for organizing project-related emails in dedicated folders, keeping your actual email accounts clutter-free. It also offers an HTML mode for viewing emails. One notable feature is the ability to set up forwarding rules, which allows you to send test emails to clients for approval. In addition, you can generate short links to share with colleagues and post them in your task tracker. And most importantly, the service allows you to test an unlimited number of emails per day. This feature is really important for stress testing.
By utilizing DebugMail’s functionalities, you can optimize your test email process while avoiding the limitations of Yahoo Mail SMTP.
Conclusion
In general, Yahoo Mail SMTP provides a simple setup process but is inconvenient in terms of email viewing, sorting, and the number of testable emails. It’s more suitable for small manual unit tests.
DebugMail offers testers a quickly configurable tool for debugging email correctness, integrating into projects using snippets, credentials, or API. The tool is functional and useful for unit tests, automated and stress tests. If you have any questions about setting up DebugMail, please contact us.
Additional Resources
- DebugMail API Documentation: https://app.debugmail.io/api-public/docs/
- Top 10 Fake SMTP servers for testing emails on staging: https://medium.com/@rnbpart/fake-smtp-servers-for-development
