Set up a mail session for the Confluence distribution to use Gmail as follows:

  1. Stop Confluence.
  2. Move (don't copy) activation-1.0.2.jar and mail-1.4.1.jar from <confluence-install>/confluence/WEB-INF/lib to <confluence-install>/lib.

  3. Add the following to your server.xml file found in <confluence-install>/conf/ (add it just before the </Context> tag): 

    <Resource name="mail/GmailSMTPServer"
    auth="Container"
    type="javax.mail.Session"
    mail.smtp.host="smtp.gmail.com"
    mail.smtp.port="465"
    mail.smtp.auth="true"
    mail.smtp.user="yourEmailAddress@gmail.com"
    password="yourPassword"
    mail.smtp.starttls.enable="true"
    mail.transport.protocol="smtps"
    mail.smtp.socketFactory.class="javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory"
/>
  4. Restart Confluence.
  5. Go to Browse > Confluence Admin and click on Mail Servers. Choose either Edit an existing configuration, or Add a new SMTP mail server.

  6. Edit the server settings as necessary, and set the JNDI Location as: 

         java:comp/env/mail/GmailSMTPServer


    Note that the JNDI Location is case sensitive and must match the resource name specified in server.xml.

  7. Submit, and send a test email.