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.

Get your AWS access keys

After you've signed up for AWS, you must obtain your AWS access keys to access Amazon SES through the Amazon SES API, whether by the Query (HTTPS) interface directly or indirectly through an AWS SDK, the AWS Command Line Interface, or the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell. AWS access keys consist of an access key ID and a secret access key.

For more information about the types of security keys that you can use in Amazon SES, see Types of Amazon SES credentials. For information about obtaining AWS access keys, see AWS security credentials in the AWS General Reference.

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.