Only days after the initial release, GD Mail Queue version 2.0 is available, it has many new features and very important changes in the plugin core that aim to get more flexibility in the future.
Version 2.0 brings an updated dashboard, showing more queue related information, new tools, several new major features and many more settings with improved options organization.
Plugin dashboard showing queue status and overall mailer statistics
To allow for the plugin to be expanded in the future, a concept of ‘engines’ is introduced, and the first engine included is PHPMailer, since that is the core of the WordPress mail handling. And, the plugin has settings for customizing and using an SMTP server to send emails. This means, that if you want to use this plugin, you no longer need to have separate plugin for setting up an SMTP server.
On top of that, the plugin has new tools to test email delivery and sending emails into the queue. With these tools, you can test how emails look like, and how the PHPMailer behaves with SMTP (if enabled). The plugin is tested with BuddyPress and it handles BuddyPress emails correctly (if the BuddyPress uses PHPMailer). Since BuddyPress emails are HTML already, that part is skipped, but queue works as expected.
The plugin is available for free on WordPress.org, so check it out:
Let me know what you think about the new plugin, and if you have any questions or suggestions.
Hi,
Wow – you are fast with changes. I will take a look as soon as I can.
Does using Sendgrid via SMTP work as efficiently as their plugin which uses an API connection?
And with your queue system do you use the library developed by delicious Brains team from their Offload Media (formerly Offload s3 plugin) which is also used in WooCommerce subscriptions to handle lots of jobs at scale?
Thanks,
Dale.
I have tested SendInBlue (similar to SnedGrid) with SMTP, and it was working great, with fast sending, and extra things added by SendInBlue were working with SMTP sending, including tracking. I know that many services recommend using API over SMTP, and API does have advantages, SMTP is working well. I do plan to add (most likely as a Pro version) support for popular services that use their API’s, so users can choose what they like more, but for now, SMTP works well.
My plugin can’t work with any plugin that replaces wp_mail. I am not sure what library by DeliciousBrains you are referring to, but there are no third party libraries integrations in my plugin, and I don’t plan to add any. To add support for external services API’s, I will add everything needed into the plugin.
I have tested the plugin with bbPress, BuddyPress and WooCommerce, and everything works fine. If you notice any issues with these integrations, please let me know. I will work to add deeper integrations with these plugins if needed to ensure that large mailings can be queue properly and delivered in the background.
Milan