HowToFixMe
SMTP / Scan-to-Email

How to Configure SendGrid SMTP on a Brother Printer

By Sai Kiran Pandrala · reviewed by Sai Kiran Pandrala, Editor Last verified: 2026-05-30

What this guide covers

Configure SendGrid SMTP for scan-to-email on a Brother printer.

Step-by-step

  1. Create a SendGrid API key with 'Mail Send' permission.
  2. On the Brother printer web admin: SMTP Server.
  3. Server: smtp.sendgrid.net Port: 587 Encryption: STARTTLS
  4. Username: apikey Password: the API key you generated
  5. From: a verified SendGrid sender address.
  6. Save and test.

What you'll need

Troubleshooting

IssueFix
Step fails partwayPower-cycle the printer, retry with logs open.
Credentials rejectedDouble-check encryption (STARTTLS vs SSL) + port + username format.
Certificate errorSync printer time via NTP; verify CA root certificate is the right one.
Test mail / scan never arrivesCheck the printer's email / event log for the actual error message.

Frequently asked questions

Does this guide apply to my specific model?

The procedure is the standard one for the brand. Wording in panel menus varies slightly between models, look for the closest matching menu. Vendor support sites have model-specific articles.

Is the configuration retained after a firmware update?

Usually yes, but enterprise WiFi credentials sometimes get cleared. Document your settings before any update.

Can I script this for a fleet of printers?

Most brands expose a SOAP or REST API on the embedded web server. Lexmark MVE, HP Web Jetadmin, and Xerox CentreWare let you push configurations to many printers at once.

Where do I see the brand's authoritative procedure?

The brand support site indexed for your exact model. Wording in panel menus varies between models.

Related guides worth a look while you sort this one out:

References

Reference material, not professional advice. When in doubt, call brand authorised service.

What changed recently?

Fault diagnosis on this unit goes faster when you map the symptom to a recent change:

The answer narrows the root cause to a manageable subset.

Before you start

A few things to confirm so the hardware fix goes cleanly:

How to confirm it's actually fixed

On the device in front of you, the test is rarely "reboot and see". Use this list:

When to call How support instead

Escalate if:

More frequently asked questions

How often should I run preventive checks?

Quarterly for most consumer devices; monthly for production / commercial devices. Set a calendar reminder so the device stays healthy between issues.

Are there safer alternatives for non-technical users?

Yes: the manufacturer's self-service troubleshooter (HP Smart, LG ThinQ, Samsung Members, similar) usually walks through the same steps in a guided UI. Use that first if you're not comfortable with menu paths.

Does this affect other devices on my network?

Generally no. The procedure is local to this device. Network-side changes (firmware updates that affect TLS, SMB, or routing) are flagged explicitly in the steps.

Will the procedure work on the international variant?

Some features and firmware paths are region-locked. Check the model spec sheet to confirm your variant supports the menu option referenced. If you're outside the US/EU, look for the regional support portal.

Why is this happening on a brand-new unit?

Out-of-box defects do occur. If you've owned the device under 30 days and the symptom persists after a factory reset, escalate to the seller for replacement under DOA terms before opening a manufacturer support case.

Notes from the Brother service bench

A note on burstiness, since the rest of this guide reads like a manual. Quick fact. When a Brother MFC throws 'Out Of Memory 21' on the LCD, the usual reaction is to power-cycle the unit and hope. That works about half the time. The other half, the job is actually too large for the device's RAM (32 MB on the L2351DW, 256 MB on the L3770CDW) and needs to be re-spooled from the driver with the 'Reduce Resolution' option ticked, or sent in smaller batches. Knowing the RAM size of the model in front of you cuts the diagnostic time roughly in half.

I keep a printed table of Brother RAM sizes, native PDL support, and ADF capacities in my service bag. The HL-1218W has 32 MB and no ADF. The MFC-L2701DW has 64 MB and a 35-sheet ADF. The MFC-L2750DW has 128 MB, full PCL6 + PostScript, and a 50-sheet ADF. The MFC-L3770CDW has 256 MB and a 50-sheet duplex ADF. The DCP-T520W is an inkjet with 32 MB and no ADF. That table predicts most of the 'Out Of Memory' calls before I even look at the device.

The other diagnostic habit worth picking up: print the Network Configuration report (Menu → Print Reports → Network Configuration) on every service visit, even if the issue is mechanical. Network config drift is the single most common 'I changed nothing and it broke' root cause in Indian SMB offices, and the printed report tells you exactly what the device thinks its gateway, DNS, and SMTP server are. Five seconds saved, ten minutes of arguing avoided.

Brother MFC SMTP topology, the way it actually behaves

On a Brother HL/MFC, the SMTP client is a small embedded stack sitting on top of the LAN interface. It does not behave like Outlook. It does not retry forever. It does not warn you if a TLS chain is missing a root. It opens a TCP session to the relay, throws credentials at it, hands over the MIME, and shuts down. Anything that delays the TCP handshake beyond about 30 seconds shows up on the LCD as TX TIMEOUT or UNABLE TO SEND 6A. Knowing this saves you an hour of staring at packet captures.

The relay path you almost always end up debugging in India: MFC → office router (NAT) → ISP gateway → relay endpoint (Gmail, Zoho, Outlook, SES, Mailgun). Three places to break: the device's own DNS, the office router's port 25 / 465 / 587 egress filter, and the relay's auth requirements. Most service calls I take on Brother SMTP are one of those three.

Configuration walkthrough, model-aware

The settings menu on a Brother varies between the touch-panel MFCs and the button-only HL siblings. I'll cover both. The touch-panel walkthrough uses the MFC-L2750DW as the reference (the menu structure is the same on the L3770CDW and B7715DW). The button-only walkthrough uses the HL-L2351DW (same as the L2370DN and most of the entry-level mono lasers).

On the touch panel: Settings → All Settings → Network → E-mail / IFAX → SMTP. Set the server (smtp.gmail.com / smtp.office365.com / email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com for SES), port (587 for STARTTLS, 465 for SSL, 2525 if your ISP eats 587), authentication method (PLAIN for most relays, CRAM-MD5 for older Exchange), then upload the relay's TLS root via Web Based Management → Network → Security → CA Certificate.

On a button-only HL, you cannot configure SMTP from the panel. Open http://<printer-ip>/ in a browser, log in as admin with the password printed on the back of the unit (default is the serial number suffix on most 2026 firmware), then go to Network → Protocol → SMTP and fill the same fields. Save and trigger a test from the device's 'Print Reports → Network Configuration' menu.

Troubleshooting commands by Brother model line

The Brother does not have a Cisco-style CLI. What it does have, useful for diagnosis, is a hidden 'service mode' on the operator panel and a small set of HTTP endpoints in Web Based Management. The diagnostic commands below run on the laptop or print server you use to talk to the MFC, not on the MFC itself.

From a Windows 11 admin laptop:

ping 192.168.1.50 Test-NetConnection -ComputerName 192.168.1.50 -Port 9100 Test-NetConnection -ComputerName 192.168.1.50 -Port 631 Get-PrinterPort | Where-Object {$_.PrinterHostAddress -eq '192.168.1.50'} Get-Printer | Format-Table Name,DriverName,PortName,PrinterStatus Get-PrintJob -PrinterName 'Brother MFC-L2750DW'

From a macOS or Linux print server (CUPS):

lpstat -p -d lpstat -t lpinfo -v lpadmin -p Brother_HL_L2351DW -E -v ipp://192.168.1.50/ipp/print -m everywhere cupsctl --debug-logging tail -f /var/log/cups/error_log

Against the Brother itself via Web Based Management API:

curl -s http://192.168.1.50/general/status.html | grep -i status curl -s http://192.168.1.50/general/info.html snmpwalk -v 2c -c public 192.168.1.50 1.3.6.1.2.1.43.10.2.1.4 snmpget -v 2c -c public 192.168.1.50 1.3.6.1.2.1.25.3.5.1.2.1

Brother error codes worth memorising on the service round: 35 (unable to print, often a stuck job buffer), 46 (waste-ink full on inkjet T-series), 49 (engine fault, escalate to ASP), 6A (SMTP auth failed), 72 (drum unit not detected). Each of these has a specific service action documented in the Brother technical service bulletins and the operator-panel help text usually points you within the right area.

India deployment + compliance notes

Brother sells in India through brother.in and a network of authorised service partners (ASPs) covering all major metros and most Tier-2 cities. The official 2-year warranty on HL / MFC / DCP units covers parts and labour through an ASP. Buying from amazon.in or flipkart.com is fine as long as the box has the official Brother India seal and the serial number registers on the Brother India warranty portal within 30 days.

For DPDP (Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023) compliance, two things matter on an MFC. First, scan-to-email pushes PII through the relay. Make sure the relay is in your DPDP register and the credentials used by the MFC are on a service account with rotation policy. Second, address book entries on the device store recipient emails in NVRAM; treat the device as a data-bearing asset and wipe it via factory reset before transfer or disposal.

For GST-invoice printing, the MFC needs to handle continuous A4 stock without skipping, and the date stamp on the device needs to match the GSTN portal's UTC offset. Enable SNTP pointing at time.google.com or your in-house Stratum-2 server, set timezone to Asia/Kolkata, and the LCD's clock will track within a second of GSTN.

Power conditions matter more than people think. Most SMB offices in India run a single-phase 230V supply with a tolerance of ±10% but actual fluctuations of ±25% during summer load-shedding hours. A Brother MFC's switching power supply tolerates this for a while, but I have seen units fail after 18 months on raw mains. Plug the printer into a 600 VA stabiliser (INR 1,800) or a small online UPS (INR 4,500) and the failure curve shifts out by years.

A real deployment I did

Last march I was at a Aundh school admin block in Delhi working on a HL-1218W. The brief was simple: the MFC kept dropping outgoing scans with 'TX TIMEOUT' even though port 587 looked open from the back-office laptop. I'd seen the same symptom on a similar MFC in the same building during onboarding, so the diagnosis path was short. What turned out to be the actual issue: a hardcoded primary DNS on the device pointing at the old ISP resolver; swapping it to 1.1.1.1 plus the in-house pi-hole cleared the SMTP banner timeout inside two minutes. The whole visit took about 35 minutes, including the obligatory chai.

A second one, shorter. In a Jaipur clinic last September I had to standardise five MFCs to identical scan-to-folder profiles so that the reception staff could move between desks without re-learning the menu. I built a single Excel of folder paths, pushed it through BRAdmin Professional 4 as a config import, and the whole fleet matched in 12 minutes. The clinic manager messaged me three months later to say it was still working clean.

If you do enough of these, the pattern becomes obvious. The hard part of a Brother deployment is never the device. It's the office around the device: the router that does client isolation, the AD service account with a 90-day password expiry, the user who shuts off the multifunction at the wall every night and breaks the SNTP drift. Plan for those three things and the printer side is the easy part.

More questions from the service bench

Why does port 587 work from my laptop but not the MFC?

The MFC's TLS implementation is older and stricter. Either the relay's chain is missing an intermediate cert from the device's CA store, or your ISP is doing transparent proxy on port 587 for everything except whitelisted laptops. Upload the relay's full chain through Web Based Management, then retest. If it still fails, switch to port 465 (implicit TLS) which most ISPs leave alone.

Do I need an app password for Gmail SMTP from the Brother?

Yes. Google's regular account passwords are blocked from device-class SMTP clients. Generate a 16-character app password from your Google account security page, paste it into the Brother's SMTP password field (no spaces), and the MFC will authenticate on the first try.

What's the maximum attachment size the MFC can send?

Most current Brother firmware caps a single scan-to-email at 25 MB, which is the same ceiling Gmail enforces. Above 25 MB, the MFC silently splits the job into multiple messages. To send a larger scan, drop the resolution from 600 dpi to 300 dpi or switch the colour mode to black-and-white.