Sending e-mail from SharePoint 2010 via Gmail

As many SharePoint 2010 Administrators already know, you are unable to configure SMTP settings for SharePoint Outgoing e-mail.  Therefore, you can only configure SMTP to listen on the default SMTP port of 25, making it impossible to use other SMTP engines such as GMail.

Fortunately, several people have discovered a workaround of using Windows' own SMTP Server and configuring it to work with GMail as described here:

http://sharepoint-snippets.com/configure-sharepoint-to-send-email-through-gmail/

http://www.jppinto.com/2010/07/how-to-configure-iis-smtp-server-to-forward-emails-using-a-gmail-account/

You can then configure outgoing e-mail settings in SharePoint Central Administration by navigating to System Settings-->Configure outgoing e-mail settings.

NOTE: If you are working with a standalone/local installation of SharePoint, you will have to use the computer name for the SMTP Server (instead of localhost or 127.0.0.1).  If your SharePoint server resides on a domain and has an associated FQDN, you can use the FQDN for the SMTP Server name instead.

However, if you have Mcafee VirusScan v. 8.8i running on your server as well, be sure to disable the Mass Mailing setting as well otherwise your e-mails will never be sent out!!  http://samirvaidya.blogspot.com/2011/03/mcafee-virusscan-can-block-sending-of-e.html