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Email deliverability testing, and QA testing web apps with multiple account permissions, are critical aspects of software development and Quality Assurance (QA). Although disposable email websites and gmail addresses are a common choice for this task, they present several significant drawbacks for enterprises. This article will detail the advantages of using dedicated email deliverability platforms like Mailsac instead.

Limitations of Disposable Email

1. Security and Privacy

Disposable email platforms typically make all emails public. These websites are frequently crawled by scammers to acquire sensitive information.

Disposable email services often lack robust security measures, exposing sensitive test data. This lack of security can compromise the integrity of testing and risk breaches of confidential information. They rely on security through obscurity – random email addresses that are hopefully unguessable.

Disposable email providers typically do not have Information Security and Assurance programs, and cannot pass a Vendor Risk Assessment.

2. Business Agreements

The terms of service for disposable email services are often unsuitable for professional development and testing contexts. They can include problematic clauses and offer limited protections for users, which isn’t ideal for businesses. The terms and privacy policies tend to be non-negotiable.

3. B2B Interfaces

Disposable email services often lack capabilities for Business-to-Business (B2B) interfacing. This limitation can hinder the integration of these services into larger, automated testing suites, significantly limiting their usefulness in professional testing scenarios.

4. Uptime and Performance

Disposable email services are often slow and lack reliable uptime. These performance issues can introduce unnecessary delays into the testing process and create uncertainties around the reliability of test results. If an email was delayed, it can be hard to know if it was on your end, or theirs.

Advantages of Using Mailsac

Mailsac, as a dedicated email deliverability platform, provides a solution to these limitations and offers considerable advantages for professional QAs and software devs.

1. Enhanced Security

Mailsac prioritizes security, providing secure paid private inboxes and whole subdomains for testing.

You can test your application’s email functionality without risking sensitive data being leaked or public, or sold to a data broker.

2. Professional Business Agreements

Mailsac offers business-friendly terms of service, custom terms, P.O.s, multiple users, SSO and other features designed with the needs of professional QAs and software developers in larger companies with legal and security requirements. This provides a more suitable environment for business operations and testing.

3. Integration and functional testing

Mailsac provides powerful REST APIs, webhooks, and web sockets for integrating into CI/CD and workflows. Companies frequently integrate mailsac seamlessly into their automated testing suite. Using a consumer disposable provider often results in unexpectedly failed builds. Using a professional provider gives you comprehensive and efficient testing and enables continuous deployment.

4. Reliable Performance

Mailsac has high uptime and quick API and UI performance, ensuring a smooth and reliable email testing process. We believe performance is a feature.

5. Share test environment account email addresses

When you are testing a web application, you can use email addresses that are private to your Mailsac account to sign up for your app. Then share those inboxes with your teammates. For example, you may be testing a web app with two RBAC roles – administrator and readonly user. Each can have a unique mailsac email address. Your web app sends a sign-in link via email. All team members can access it (using mailsac’s multi-user or SSO feature). And since it’s not disposable email, the sign-in link to your app’s dev environment won’t be public.

While disposable email services may appear convenient, they come with considerable drawbacks for professional QAs and software devs. They can be against company policies because they may leak proprietary business information. Mailsac, with its robust features and focus on business needs, provides a far more effective solution for email deliverability testing.

The importance of Quality Assurance (QA) testing in software development and operations cannot be overstated. It ensures the product or system performs as expected, minimizing the risk of unexpected failures in production environments. A crucial aspect of QA testing involves testing email deliverability. This article will focus on how to use Mailsac, a leading tool in email testing, to execute this task effectively.

What is Mailsac?

Mailsac is a service providing temporary, “for-test-only” email addresses that can be used for testing and development purposes. Mailsac’s uniqueness lies in its capability to accept emails sent to any unique, auto-generated email addresses under its domain, thus eliminating the need for pre-generating email addresses or setting up a dedicated testing email server.

Why Use Mailsac for Email Deliverability Testing?

Email deliverability testing is vital to ensure emails are correctly dispatched from your application and are appropriately received by your users. Mailsac offers the flexibility to test various email formats and content, inspect the received emails, and verify they are correctly formatted and contain the correct data. This helps mitigate common issues such as emails being marked as spam, lost emails, or broken email formats.

How to Perform QA Testing with Mailsac

Let’s delve into the steps to conduct QA testing for email deliverability using Mailsac.

Step 1: Set Up a Mailsac Account

First and foremost, you need to create a Mailsac account. Visit the Mailsac website and follow the sign-up instructions.

Step 2: Send Emails to Mailsac

Next, send emails from your application to any addresses on the mailsac.com domain. Mailsac is designed in such a way that you don’t need to pre-generate the email addresses. Just decide on the address you want to use and send the email. The inbox will be created automatically when an email is received.

You can send the emails from anywhere, too – personal or work addresses, fake senders, CLI tools, software applications – without a separate sending gateway.

Step 3: Check Email Deliverability

After sending the emails, you can verify their delivery in the Mailsac interface. Here, you can view the received emails, check their contents, and confirm they are correctly formatted. Mailsac also enables you to check if attachments are included correctly using the Unified Inbox or API, and whether the links and images in the email are functioning properly.

Advanced Testing with Mailsac API

For more sophisticated or comprehensive testing, Mailsac offers a robust JSON REST API and Web Socket API. This empowers you to automate the process of sending emails, checking their delivery, and verifying their contents. These API calls can be integrated into your automated testing suite, enabling you to conduct in-depth email deliverability tests as a part of your regular testing process.

Wrapping Up

Mailsac presents a powerful and versatile method to test email deliverability as a part of your QA process. It allows you to send emails to any address on its domain, and the inboxes are created automatically when an email is received. By integrating Mailsac into your QA testing, you can significantly enhance the quality and reliability of your email notifications, thus offering a better user experience. Sign up and start receiving email in seconds.