About
Ethereal Email is a fake SMTP service for testing outbound email. Developers can create a throwaway SMTP account with Nodemailer or manually, send messages to smtp.ethereal.email, and preview the captured mail through a public message URL or by reading it back over IMAP/POP3.
The service stores test messages for a few hours, keeps them in the INBOX folder, and gives each address a 100MB mailbox quota. Public accounts can send up to 200 messages per hour, while inbound email is enabled only for accounts created by EmailEngine subscribers.
- Fake SMTP message capture
- IMAP and POP3 mailbox access
- 100MB mailbox quota
- 200 messages per hour
- Few-hour message retention
- Public preview URLs
Free Tier Value
This free tier is genuinely usable for development: it includes instant account creation, SMTP/IMAP access, public message previews, and enough storage and throughput for small test workloads. The main limits are the 200 messages/hour cap, 100MB per address, and automatic deletion after a few hours, so it feels like a small but practical sandbox rather than a full paid-grade mailbox; that puts it at about $3/month in buyer value, with no credit card friction and no expiration.
What's included in the free tier
- Free email-catching service that stores test emails for review instead of delivering them.
- Instant SMTP credentials with no signup or verification.
- Create as many test accounts as needed.
- Public accounts can send up to 200 messages per hour.
- Messages are stored for a few hours before automatic deletion.
- Each address includes 100MB of message storage.
- Message preview URLs are public and do not require authentication.
- IMAP access to view sent messages in the inbox folder.
- Public accounts do not support inbound email; messages to them bounce.
See Ethereal Email pricing for current limits.
