Missing credentials for "PLAIN" nodemailer

Question

I'm trying to use nodemailer in my contact form to receive feedback and send them directly to an email. This is the form below.

<form method="post" action="/contact">
      <label for="name">Name:</label>
      <input type="text" name="name" placeholder="Enter Your Name" required><br>
      <label for="email">Email:</label>
      <input type="email" name="email" placeholder="Enter Your Email" required><br>
      <label for="feedback">Feedback:</label>
      <textarea name="feedback" placeholder="Enter Feedback Here"></textarea><br>
      <input type="submit" name="sumbit" value="Submit">
</form>

This is what the request in the server side looks like

app.post('/contact',(req,res)=>{
let transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    service: 'gmail',
    auth: {
        user: '[email protected]',
        password: 'password'
    }
});
var mailOptions = {
    from: req.body.name + '<' + req.body.email + '>',
    to: '[email protected]',
    subject: 'Plbants Feedback',
    text: req.body.feedback 
};
transporter.sendMail(mailOptions,(err,res)=>{
    if(err){
        console.log(err);
    }
    else {

    }
});

I'm getting the error Missing credentials for "PLAIN". Any help is appreciated, thank you very much.

Solution 1

You have

auth: {
    user: '[email protected]',
    password: 'password'
}

But you should write this

auth: {
    user: '[email protected]',
    pass: 'password'
}

Just rename password to pass.

Solution 2

I was able to solve this problem by using number 3, Set up 3LO authentication, example from the nodemailer documentation (link: https://nodemailer.com/smtp/oauth2/). My code looks like this:

let transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    host: 'smtp.gmail.com',
    port: 465,
    secure: true,
    auth: {
        type: 'OAuth2',
        user: '[email protected]',
        clientId: '000000000000-xxx0.apps.googleusercontent.com',
        clientSecret: 'XxxxxXXxX0xxxxxxxx0XXxX0',
        refreshToken: '1/XXxXxsss-xxxXXXXXxXxx0XXXxxXXx0x00xxx',
        accessToken: 'ya29.Xx_XX0xxxxx-xX0X0XxXXxXxXXXxX0x'
    }
});

If you looked at the example in the link that I stated above, you can see there that there is a 'expires' property but in my code i didn't include it and it still works fine.

To get the clientId, clientSecret, refreshToken, and accessToken, I just watched this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ44WA_eV8E .

I don't know if this is still helpful to you tho.

Solution 3

Gmail / Google app email service requires OAuth2 for authentication. PLAIN text password will require disabling security features manually on the google account.

To use OAuth2 in Nodemailer, refer: https://nodemailer.com/smtp/oauth2/

Sample code:

var email_smtp = nodemailer.createTransport({      
  host: "smtp.gmail.com",
  auth: {
    type: "OAuth2",
    user: "[email protected]",
    clientId: "CLIENT_ID_HERE",
    clientSecret: "CLIENT_SECRET_HERE",
    refreshToken: "REFRESH_TOKEN_HERE"                              
  }
});

And if you still want to use just plain text password, disable secure login on your google account and use as follows:

var email_smtp = nodemailer.createTransport({      
  host: "smtp.gmail.com",
  auth: {
    type: "login", // default
    user: "[email protected]",
    pass: "PASSWORD_HERE"
  }
});

Solution 4

We don't need to lower our Google Account Security for this. This works for me on localhost and live server. Versions: node 12.18.4, nodemailer ^6.4.11.

STEP 1: Follow setting up your Google Api Access in this video AND IGNORE his code (it didn't work for me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ44WA_eV8E

STEP 2: Try this code in your main app file after you install nodemailer and dotenv via npm i nodemailer dotenv:

    require('dotenv').config();  //import and config dotenv to use .env file for secrets
    const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');

    function sendMessage() {
      try {
        // mail options
        const mailOptions = {
          from: "[email protected]",
          to: "[email protected]",
          subject: "Hey there!",
          text: "Whoa! It freakin works now."
        };
        // here we actually send it
        transporter.sendMail(mailOptions, function(err, info) {
          if (err) {
            console.log("Error sending message: " + err);
          } else {
            // no errors, it worked
            console.log("Message sent succesfully.");
          }
        });
      } catch (error) {
        console.log("Other error sending message: " + error);
      }
    }

    // thats the key part, without all these it didn't work for me
    let transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
      host: 'smtp.gmail.com',
      port: 465,
      secure: true,
      service: 'gmail',
      auth: {
            type: "OAUTH2",
            user: process.env.GMAIL_USERNAME,  //set these in your .env file
            clientId: process.env.OAUTH_CLIENT_ID,
            clientSecret: process.env.OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET,
            refreshToken: process.env.OAUTH_REFRESH_TOKEN,
            accessToken: process.env.OAUTH_ACCESS_TOKEN,
            expires: 3599
      }
    });

    // invoke sending function
    sendMessage();

Your .env file for the above code should look similar to this:

[email protected]
GMAIL_PASSWORD=lakjrfnk;wrh2poir2039r
OAUTH_CLIENT_ID=vfo9u2o435uk2jjfvlfdkpg284u3.apps.googleusercontent.com
OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET=og029503irgier0oifwori
OAUTH_REFRESH_TOKEN=2093402i3jflj;geijgp039485puihsg[-9a[3;wjenjk,ucv[3485p0o485uyr;ifasjsdo283wefwf345w]fw2984329oshfsh
OAUTH_ACCESS_TOKEN=owiejfw84u92873598yiuhvsldiis9er0235983isudhfdosudv3k798qlk3j4094too283982fs

Solution 5

For me the issue was that I wasn't accessing the .env file variables properly (I assume you're storing your email and password in a .env file too). I had to add this to the top of the file:

const dotenv = require('dotenv');
dotenv.config();

Once I did that I could fill out the "auth" portion of the credentials like this:

auth: {
  user: process.env.EMAIL_USERNAME,
  pass: process.env.EMAIL_PASSWORD
}

Of course you need to replace EMAIL_USERNAME and EMAIL_PASSWORD with whatever you called those variables in your .env file.

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