Amazon SES SDK setup for Node

Here’s a simple setup for Amazon SES in Node.js using the AWS SDK.

1) Install the SDK

For AWS SDK v3:

npm install @aws-sdk/client-ses

2) Configure AWS credentials

Use one of these:

• AWS CLI config: aws configure
• Environment variables:

  AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your_key
  AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your_secret
  AWS_REGION=us-east-1
  

• IAM role if running on AWS infrastructure

3) Send an email with SES

const { SESClient, SendEmailCommand } = require("@aws-sdk/client-ses");

const ses = new SESClient({
  region: "us-east-1",
  // credentials optional if already set in env / IAM role / shared config
});

async function sendEmail() {
  const params = {
    Source: "verified-sender@example.com",
    Destination: {
      ToAddresses: ["recipient@example.com"],
    },
    Message: {
      Subject: {
        Data: "Test email from SES",
        Charset: "UTF-8",
      },
      Body: {
        Text: {
          Data: "Hello! This is a test email sent via Amazon SES.",
          Charset: "UTF-8",
        },
      },
    },
  };

  try {
    const result = await ses.send(new SendEmailCommand(params));
    console.log("Email sent:", result.MessageId);
  } catch (err) {
    console.error("Error sending email:", err);
  }
}

sendEmail();

4) Important SES requirements

• Your sender email/domain must be verified in SES.
• If your SES account is in the sandbox, you can only send to verified recipients.
• Make sure the region matches where your SES identity is verified.

5) If you want HTML email

Replace the Body section:

Body: {
  Html: {
    Data: "<h1>Hello</h1><p>This is a test email.</p>",
    Charset: "UTF-8",
  },
  Text: {
    Data: "Hello! This is a test email.",
    Charset: "UTF-8",
  },
}

If you want, I can also give you:

• a nodemailer + SES setup
• a TypeScript version
• a working Express example
• or the AWS SDK v2 version