The discussion revolves around the DISCOURSE_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL setting in Discourse. exlabs asks if this email address needs to be a real, existing inbox or if it can be anything, such as a non-existent email like noreply@discourse.mydomain.com. Ethsim2 responds that the email address does not need an inbox and can be any address in the subdomain, as long as it is configured with the transactional email provider (e.g. SendGrid). The address is used for sending transactional emails, such as account activation and password reset emails. Ethsim2 further clarifies that if inbound email is desired, an API from the email provider is needed, and email can be delivered to a topic without requiring an actual inbox. exlabs thanks Ethsim2 for the clear explanation.
Can this setting be anything, is it purely cosmetic? I mean, could I change it to an email that does not exist noreply@discourse.mydomain.com? Or does this email actually need an inbox, etc?
you’d be glad to know it doesn’t the forum sends transactional emails by SMTP, so you need to log in to the SendGrid. Discourse can use any address in your subdomain.
Your telling discourse in the setting on the container you want discourse to always sent it’s transactional emails as noreply@ - account activation, email notifications, password reset emails, etc.
If i remember right, when i installed last year i needed to remove speech-marks in a key/password/address in the container. I wish i recorded exactly where, and the intresting errors i got before.
If you have discourse setup and running, and decide you want to receive email on discourse, you’ll need to get an api from SendGrid. However, i got my api from MailGun.
This api means there’s never really any inboxes. Mod/Admin can set any inbound email address for a group/category, given that the address domain matches what the trans email provider allows.
Through the api, the System can take steps to ensure that email is delivered to a topic. If this fails internally, the email trace stays on the admin panel logs. Oftentimes, if System cannot create staged user for inbound email, the mail provider of the sender will send an Undeliverable - with text including “do you have an account here?”. This is what i’ve experienced.
