How to create an email account and set up email receiver when using AWS EC2 and SES?

Question

So we are planning to use AWS SES for sending emails. But how do we set up the email receivers? And how do we create an email accounts? When activating AWS SES, it asks to verify an email account (eg. [email protected])...

I tried to create a mail server on one of the instances using postfix following this article: http://flurdy.com/docs/postfix/, but it's not easy at all... Does anybody know any better alternatives?

Thanks.

Answer 1

SES is for sending email only. As you note, you must have some other way set up to receive email at least at the "From" address you intend to use, because Amazon will verify it before letting you send.

While you certainly could set up an email server and domain on an EC2 instance, it's very complicated. I recommend that you get an email service for just that purpose. If you only need a single address for all your messages, just get a free address from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc.

If you need multiple addresses, consider getting Google Apps for Business, either for an existing or new domain name (it's easiest to set up if you have it register a new domain name for you). It's no longer free, but it's still quite cheap. A single user account can receive emails for every address in the domain, it's flexible, and it's reliable. It's a good companion to using SES for sending automated emails.