Setting up Amazon Simple Email Service

Before you start using Amazon SES, you must complete the following tasks.

Sign up for AWS

If you do not have an AWS account, complete the following steps to create one.

To sign up for an AWS account

1. Open https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup.

2. Follow the online instructions.

   Part of the sign-up procedure involves receiving a phone call and entering a verification code on the phone keypad.

   When you sign up for an AWS account, an AWS account root user is created. The root user has access to all AWS services and resources in the account. As a security best practice, assign administrative access to an administrative user, and use only the root user to perform tasks that require root user access.

Grant programmatic access

Users need programmatic access if they want to interact with AWS outside of the AWS Management Console. The way to grant programmatic access depends on the type of user that's accessing AWS:

• If you manage identities in IAM Identity Center, the AWS APIs require a profile, and the AWS Command Line Interface requires a profile or an environment variable.

• If you have IAM users, the AWS APIs and the AWS Command Line Interface require access keys. Whenever possible, create temporary credentials that consist of an access key ID, a secret access key, and a security token that indicates when the credentials expire.

To grant users programmatic access, choose one of the following options.

Which user needs programmatic access?	To	By
Workforce identity (Users managed in IAM Identity Center)	Use short-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the AWS CLI or AWS APIs (directly or by using the AWS SDKs).	Following the instructions for the interface that you want to use: For the AWS CLI, follow the instructions in Getting IAM role credentials for CLI access in the AWS IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS Single Sign-On) User Guide. For the AWS APIs, follow the instructions in SSO credentials in the AWS SDKs and Tools Reference Guide.
IAM	Use short-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the AWS CLI or AWS APIs (directly or by using the AWS SDKs).	Following the instructions in Using temporary credentials with AWS resources in the IAM User Guide.
IAM	Use long-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the AWS CLI or AWS APIs (directly or by using the AWS SDKs). (Not recommended)	Following the instructions in Managing access keys for IAM users in the IAM User Guide.

Download an AWS SDK

To call the Amazon SES API without having to handle low-level details like assembling raw HTTP requests, you can use an AWS SDK. The AWS SDKs provide functions and data types that encapsulate the functionality of Amazon SES and other AWS services. To download an AWS SDK, go to SDKs. After you download the SDK, create a shared credentials file and specify your AWS access keys.

Verify your email address

Before you can send email from your email address through Amazon SES, you must show Amazon SES that you own the email address by verifying it. For instructions, see Creating an email address identity.