Email
Nextcloud is capable of sending password reset emails, notifying users of new file shares, changes in files, and activity notifications. Your users configure which notifications they want to receive on their Personal pages.
Nextcloud does not contain a full email server, but rather connects to your existing mail server. You must have a functioning mail server for Nextcloud to be able to send emails. You may have a mail server on the same machine as Nextcloud, or it may be a remote server.
To access the setup page below log in with an admin account. Click on your avatar in the top right, and then click Settings. On the left side under Administration and click Basic settings.
![../_images/smtp-config-wizard.png](../_images/smtp-config-wizard.png)
With the wizard, connecting Nextcloud to your mail server is fast and easy.
The wizard fills in the values in config/config.php
, so you may use either
or both as you prefer.
The Nextcloud Email wizard supports three types of mail server connections: SMTP, qmail, and Sendmail. Use the SMTP configurator for a remote server or Sendmail when your mail server is on the same machine as Nextcloud.
Note
The Sendmail option refers to the Sendmail SMTP server and any
drop-in Sendmail replacement such as Postfix, Exim, or Courier. All of
these include a sendmail
binary, and are freely-interchangeable.
Configuring an SMTP server
You need the following information from your mail server administrator to connect Nextcloud to a remote SMTP server:
Encryption type: None, SSL/TLS, or STARTTLS
The From address you want your outgoing Nextcloud mails to use
Whether authentication is required
Authentication method: None, Login, Plain, or NT LAN Manager
The server’s IP address or fully-qualified domain name and the SMTP port
Login credentials (if required)
Note
The overwrite.cli.url
parameter from config.php
will be used for the SMTP EHLO.
![../_images/smtp-config-smtp.png](../_images/smtp-config-smtp.png)
Your changes are saved immediately, and you can click the Send Email button to test your configuration. This sends a test message to the email address you configured on your Personal page. The test message says:
If you received this email, the settings seem to be correct.
--
Nextcloud
a safe home for all your data
Configuring Sendmail/qmail
Configuring Sendmail or qmail requires only that you select one of them instead of SMTP, and then enter your desired return email address.
In most cases the SMTP
option is best, since you will be able to control all
of your mail server options in one place, in your mail server configuration then.
Using email templates
We designed a mechanism that generates emails which follow the theming settings and look the same in all the different email clients out there.
Note
If, for some reason, you need text-only emails, consider simply configuring this on the client side or let the receiving (or even sending) mail server drop the HTML part. Note that there is no security impact from sending HTML emails, just from displaying them and thus any security risk can only be mitigated by disabling showing HTML on the client (or removing the HTML part in the mail server).
Modifying the look of emails beyond the theming app capabilities
You can overwrite templates by writing a class that implements the template interface (or extends it to not need to copy over everything). Easiest way is to then put this class into an app and load it so you do not need to patch it on every update.
This is the interface of the class that needs to be implemented: https://github.com/nextcloud/server/blob/master/lib/public/Mail/IEMailTemplate.php
That is the implementation that could be extended and used to see how it works: https://github.com/nextcloud/server/blob/master/lib/private/Mail/EMailTemplate.php
An example from a GitHub issue:
Look at the source code of extended class OC\Mail\EMailTemplate::class
Then override what you need in your own OC\Mail\EMailTemplate::class extension
Example:
Let’s assume that we need to override the email header:
<?php
namespace \OCA\MyApp;
use OC\Mail\EMailTemplate;
class MyClass extends EMailTemplate
{
protected $header = <<<EOF
<table align="center" class="wrapper">
// your theme email header modification
</table>
EOF;
}
Then in
config/config.php
changemail_template_class
to your class namespace:'mail_template_class' => 'OCA\\MyApp\\MyClass',
You will find a detailed step by step guide in our support portal.
Setting mail server parameters in config.php
If you prefer, you may set your mail server parameters in config/config.php
.
The following examples are for SMTP, Sendmail, and Qmail.
SMTP
If you want to send email using a local or remote SMTP server it is necessary to enter the name or IP address of the server, optionally followed by a colon separated port number, e.g. :425. If this value is not given the default port 25/tcp will be used unless you change that by modifying the mail_smtpport parameter.
"mail_smtpmode" => "smtp",
"mail_smtphost" => "smtp.server.dom:425",
or
"mail_smtpmode" => "smtp",
"mail_smtphost" => "smtp.server.dom",
"mail_smtpport" => 425,
If a malware or SPAM scanner is running on the SMTP server it might be necessary that you increase the SMTP timeout to e.g. 30s:
"mail_smtptimeout" => 30,
If the SMTP server accepts insecure connections, the default setting can be used:
"mail_smtpsecure" => '',
If the SMTP server only accepts secure connections you can choose between the following two variants:
SSL
A secure connection will be initiated using the SMTPS protocol which uses the port 465/tcp:
"mail_smtphost" => "smtp.server.dom:465",
"mail_smtpsecure" => 'ssl',
TLS
A secure connection will be initiated using the STARTTLS protocol which uses the default port 25/tcp:
"mail_smtphost" => "smtp.server.dom",
"mail_smtpsecure" => 'tls',
And finally it is necessary to configure if the SMTP server requires authentication, if not, the default values can be taken as is.
"mail_smtpauth" => false,
"mail_smtpname" => "",
"mail_smtppassword" => "",
If SMTP authentication is required you have to set the required username and password and can optionally choose between the authentication types LOGIN (default) or PLAIN.
"mail_smtpauth" => true,
"mail_smtpauthtype" => "LOGIN",
"mail_smtpname" => "username",
"mail_smtppassword" => "password",
Advanced users can add additional stream options in config/config.php
,
which maps directly to Swift Mailer’s
streamOptions
configuration parameter:
"mail_smtpstreamoptions" => array(),
Sendmail
If you want to use the well known Sendmail program to send email, it is necessary to have an installed and working email system on your *nix server. The sendmail binary (/usr/sbin/sendmail) is usually part of that system. Nextcloud should be able to send email out of the box.
"mail_smtpmode" => "sendmail",
"mail_smtphost" => "127.0.0.1",
"mail_smtpport" => 25,
"mail_smtptimeout" => 10,
"mail_smtpsecure" => "",
"mail_smtpauth" => false,
"mail_smtpauthtype" => "LOGIN",
"mail_smtpname" => "",
"mail_smtppassword" => "",
qmail
If you want to use the qmail program to send email, it is necessary to have an installed and working qmail email system on your server. The qmail binary installed on your server will then be used to send email. Nextcloud should be able to send email out of the box.
"mail_smtpmode" => "qmail",
"mail_smtphost" => "127.0.0.1",
"mail_smtpport" => 25,
"mail_smtptimeout" => 10,
"mail_smtpsecure" => "",
"mail_smtpauth" => false,
"mail_smtpauthtype" => "LOGIN",
"mail_smtpname" => "",
"mail_smtppassword" => "",
Send a test email
To test your email configuration, save your email address in your personal settings and then use the Send email button in the Email Server section of the Admin settings page.
Troubleshooting
If you are unable to send email, try turning on debugging. Do this by enabling
the mail_smtpdebug
parameter in config/config.php
.
"mail_smtpdebug" => true;
Note
Immediately after pressing the Send email button, as described before, several SMTP -> get_lines(): … messages appear on the screen. This is expected behavior and can be ignored.
Question: Why is my web domain different from my mail domain?
Answer: The default domain name used for the sender address is the hostname where your Nextcloud installation is served. If you have a different mail domain name you can override this behavior by setting the following configuration parameter:
"mail_domain" => "example.com",
This setting results in every email sent by Nextcloud (for example, the password reset email) having the domain part of the sender address appear as follows:
no-reply@example.com
Question: How can I find out if an SMTP server is reachable?
Answer: Use the ping command to check the server availability:
ping smtp.server.dom
PING smtp.server.dom (ip-address) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from your-server.local.lan (192.168.1.10): icmp_req=1 ttl=64
time=3.64ms
Question: How can I find out if the SMTP server is listening on a specific TCP port?
Answer: The best way to get mail server information is to ask your mail
server admin. If you are the mail server admin, or need information in a
hurry, you can use the netstat
command. This example shows all active
servers on your system, and the ports they are listening on. The SMTP server is
listening on localhost port 25.
# netstat -pant
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State ID/Program name
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 4418/cupsd
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:25 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2245/exim4
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1524/mysqld
25/tcp is unencrypted smtp
110/tcp/udp is unencrypted pop3
143/tcp/udp is unencrypted imap4
465/tcp is encrypted submissions
587/tcp is opportunistically-encrypted submission
993/tcp/udp is encrypted imaps
995/tcp/udp is encrypted pop3s
Question: How can I determine if the SMTP server supports the SMTPS protocol?
Answer: A good indication that the SMTP server supports the SMTPS protocol is that it is listening on the submissions port 465.
Question: How can I determine what authorization and encryption protocols the mail server supports?
Answer: SMTP servers usually announce the availability of STARTTLS
immediately after a connection has been established. You can easily check this
using the telnet
command.
Note
You must enter the marked lines to obtain the information displayed.
telnet smtp.domain.dom 25
Trying 192.168.1.10...
Connected to smtp.domain.dom.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 smtp.domain.dom ESMTP Exim 4.80.1 Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:39:55 +0100
EHLO your-server.local.lan # <<< enter this command
250-smtp.domain.dom Hello your-server.local.lan [ip-address]
250-SIZE 52428800
250-8BITMIME
250-PIPELINING
250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN CRAM-MD5 # <<< Supported auth protocols
250-STARTTLS # <<< Encryption is supported
250 HELP
QUIT # <<< enter this command
221 smtp.domain.dom closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.
Question: How can I send mail when using self-signed certificates if remote SMTP server do not have options to allow this on their side?
Answer: If you are having remote SMTP setup, you can try adding this
to your config/config.php
:
"mail_smtpstreamoptions" => array(
'ssl' => array(
'allow_self_signed' => true,
'verify_peer' => false,
'verify_peer_name' => false
)
),
Enabling debug mode
If you are unable to send email, it might be useful to activate further debug
messages by enabling the mail_smtpdebug
parameter:
"mail_smtpdebug" => true,
Note
Immediately after pressing the Send email button, as described before, several SMTP -> get_lines(): … messages appear on the screen. This is expected behavior and can be ignored.