SES transport

Nodemailer SES transport lets you deliver email through Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) using the official AWS JavaScript SESv2 Client package @aws-sdk/client‑sesv2. It is a thin wrapper around SendEmailCommand that preserves the familiar transporter.sendMail() API.

The SES SDK is not bundled with Nodemailer. Install it explicitly:

npm install @aws-sdk/client-sesv2

Quick start

const nodemailer = require("nodemailer");
const { SESv2Client, SendEmailCommand } = require("@aws-sdk/client-sesv2");

// 1. Configure the AWS SDK client (uses default credential chain if omitted)
const sesClient = new SESv2Client({ region: "us‑east‑1" });

// 2. Create a Nodemailer transport that points at SES
const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
  SES: { sesClient, SendEmailCommand },
});

// 3. Send the message
const info = await transporter.sendMail({
  from: "sender@example.com",
  to: "recipient@example.com",
  subject: "Hello from Nodemailer + SES",
  text: "I hope this message gets sent!",
  // Any SendEmailCommand input can be set under the `ses` key:
  ses: {
    ConfigurationSetName: "my‑config‑set",
    EmailTags: [{ Name: "tag_name", Value: "tag_value" }],
  },
});

console.log(info.envelope); // { from: ..., to: [...] }
console.log(info.messageId); // SES MessageId

tip

You can also use the traditional callback style—transporter.sendMail(mail, cb)—if you prefer.

Transport options

Pass an SES object to createTransport() with the following required keys:

Key	Type	Description
sesClient	SESv2Client	An initialised AWS SDK v3 client
SendEmailCommand	SendEmailCommand	The command class from @aws-sdk/client‑sesv2

Message‑level options

sendMail() accepts an optional ses property. All keys of this object are merged into the input object passed to SendEmailCommand, so you can set any parameter supported by the operation (for example EmailTags, ConfigurationSetName, …).

Response object

The promise (or callback) resolves to:

Property	Description
envelope	{ from: 'address', to: ['address'] }—the SMTP envelope Nodemailer sent
messageId	The value returned by SES in the MessageId field (overrides the Message‑ID header)

Troubleshooting

“User is not authorized to perform: ses:SendEmail”

1. Confirm that the IAM principal used by the SDK has the ses:SendEmail permission (see Example 2).
2. Make sure the From address (or its domain) is verified in the SES console.
3. Rare: AWS access keys containing non‑alphanumeric characters have been reported to fail—regenerate the keys if permission checks look correct.

“Cannot find module '@aws-sdk/client-sesv2'”

The SES SDK is not bundled with Nodemailer. Install it explicitly:

npm install @aws-sdk/client-sesv2

Examples

1. Send a message

const nodemailer = require("nodemailer");
const { SESv2Client, SendEmailCommand } = require("@aws-sdk/client-sesv2");

const sesClient = new SESv2Client({ region: process.env.AWS_REGION });

const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
  SES: { sesClient, SendEmailCommand },
});

transporter.sendMail(
  {
    from: "sender@example.com",
    to: ["recipient@example.com"],
    subject: "Message via SES transport",
    text: "I hope this message gets sent!",
    ses: {
      EmailTags: [{ Name: "tag_name", Value: "tag_value" }],
    },
  },
  (err, info) => {
    if (err) {
      console.error(err);
      return;
    }
    console.log(info.envelope);
    console.log(info.messageId);
  }
);

2. Minimal IAM policy

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "ses:SendRawEmail",
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}