# Disabling emails for a few hours without Sidekiq queueing them
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-emails-for-a-few-hours-without-sidekiq-queueing-them/133638
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [November 18, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-emails-for-a-few-hours-without-sidekiq-queueing-them/133638 "2019-11-18T00:08:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@samnazarko](https://meta.discourse.org/u/samnazarko)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-emails-for-a-few-hours-without-sidekiq-queueing-them/133638/1 "2019-11-18T00:08:09Z")
Hello,
We’d like to perform some maintenance on our mail server and would like to disable Discourse from sending emails for a period of time.
I know that I can do this by changing the SMTP settings, but Sidekiq will then queue failed emails and send them later, which could cause a lot of load and even bombard some user’s mailboxes.
Is there a way to disable emails for all users temporarily, then re-enable / restore their preferences later?
Thanks
Sam
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2019, 4:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-emails-for-a-few-hours-without-sidekiq-queueing-them/133638/2 "2019-11-18T04:04:03Z")
Yes simply use the disable emails option in your site settings.
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### Author:  [@samnazarko](https://meta.discourse.org/u/samnazarko)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2019, 11:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-emails-for-a-few-hours-without-sidekiq-queueing-them/133638/3 "2019-11-18T11:52:33Z")
Thanks – not sure how I missed that.
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-emails-for-a-few-hours-without-sidekiq-queueing-them/133638/4 "2019-11-18T15:32:40Z")