# Help understanding email setup
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Tags:** email
**Created:** [May 9, 2024, 12:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339 "2024-05-09T00:59:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@forummaster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/forummaster)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 12:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/1 "2024-05-09T00:59:01Z")
I will be setting up a Discourse forum on a VPS and would like to have notification, password reset emails etc. set up.
1. Does the administrator email address need to be the same domain as the discourse forum domain? And is this the email I enter when i do the officially supported installation?
2. I use Protonmail and the domain I want to use for the forum is setup for email with Protonmail. If I use a smtp email service like Mailgun, will this conflict with my Protonmail email setup with the domain email addresses? I don’t know enough to know if entering new DNS records on top of what I already have for Protonmail will cause conflicts.
---
### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 1:09am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/2 "2024-05-09T01:09:32Z")
> [@forummaster](#):
>
> Does the administrator email address need to be the same domain as the discourse forum domain?
No, administrator e-mail address doesn’t need to be the same domain as the discourse site.
> [@forummaster](#):
>
> If I use a smtp email service like Mailgun, will this conflict with my Protonmail email setup with the domain email addresses?
There can be a conflict with that, recently tried to do this same thing but didn’t work and got notification of DNS problem with new records, so deleted those to remove the conflict.
---
### Author:  [@forummaster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/forummaster)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 1:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/3 "2024-05-09T01:13:17Z")
> [@Architect](#):
>
> There can be a conflict with that, recently tried to do this same thing but didn’t work and got notification of DNS problem with new records, so deleted those to remove the conflict.
Thank you. Since I won’t be able to use emails from the forum domain, is my only option to just buy another domain and use email with that?
---
### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 1:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/4 "2024-05-09T01:20:35Z")
To be safe probably only using only one e-mail service per domain makes sense to avoid any possible conflict, however I’m not an expert about all the options there may be some way to make a domain work with multiple e-mail services.
SMTP sending is supported with protonmail I have gotten that to work with discourse, but not with their free tier.
Have had some difficulty getting mailgun to work recentley, however Brevo is another free option that works with discourse. ([brevo.com](http://brevo.com))
For the [standard install](https://meta.discourse.org/t/142537?silent=true) process seems to be recommended if not required to use the same domain for e-mail sending that you are using for the discourse site.
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 4:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/5 "2024-05-09T16:29:25Z")
Use a service like mailgun and use your forum subdomain for the mail sending address, not your bare domain name. Then there will be no conflict.
---
### Author:  [@forummaster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/forummaster)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 5:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/6 "2024-05-09T17:28:23Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Use a service like mailgun and use your forum subdomain for the mail sending address, not your bare domain name.
Ok, thanks. So I would add a TXT record for [forum.domain.com](http://forum.domain.com) in the DNS settings and in a service like Mailgun have the notification emails sent from [notifications@forum.domain.com](mailto:notifications@forum.domain.com)?
---
### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 6:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/7 "2024-05-09T18:05:48Z")
This guide goes through all the steps for TXT, MX, and CNAME records:
[Domain Verification Setup Guide – Mailgun Help Center](https://help.mailgun.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026833053-Domain-Verification-Setup-Guide)
[https://help.mailgun.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026833053-Domain-Verification-Setup-Guide](https://help.mailgun.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026833053-Domain-Verification-Setup-Guide)
---
### Author:  [@denvergeeks](https://meta.discourse.org/u/denvergeeks)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/8 "2024-05-09T20:06:43Z")
This article might help…
> **[Can I use the same domain for both Mailgun and Google Apps (or another email...](https://help.mailgun.com/hc/en-us/articles/203357040-Can-I-use-the-same-domain-for-both-Mailgun-and-Google-Apps-or-another-email-server)**
>
> Overview
> For sending - yes. For receiving - no.
> You can only use one email server to receive messages for a given domain name. When it's a domain configured in your Mailgun account, it could be eit...
---
### Author:  [@forummaster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/forummaster)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 2:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/9 "2024-05-10T14:49:03Z")
This article says that you can’t do both, but then it says that you can. I’m even more confused now after reading it 5 times.
---
### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 2:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/10 "2024-05-10T14:52:48Z")
Lol was also confused by that, seems is contradictory except it says you can configure domain to work with a second e-mail service IF configured with a subdomain:
Excerpt:
_If you’ve got **incoming** emails setup **elsewhere** for your root domain, we recommend using a **subdomain** in your Mailgun account and pointing its **MX** records to **Mailgun** so you can **also** receive emails via our platform. The **different hostname** for the **subdomain** keeps DNS for the two domains **separate**. This helps **improve deliverability** , and allows us to more easily deal with any issues that arise with recipient email servers._
The mailgun documentation guides go through slightly different steps for setting up records for subdomain as opposed to root domain. Those can be confusing there are a lot of steps.
---
### Author:  [@forummaster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/forummaster)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 3:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/11 "2024-05-10T15:10:13Z")
Perhaps if I write out here exactly what I want to do, it could help clarify.
1. The domain I wish to use for the Discourse forum is [domain.com](http://domain.com), and I have Protonmail already configured to send and receive emails from [domain.com](http://domain.com), so according to this article I can’t use Mailgun unless I only set up a subdomain.
2. Configure the subdomain [forum.domain.com](http://forum.domain.com) in Mailgun to send notification emails. Do not add the MX records in the DNS settings for the domain if I want to only send notification emails but not receive them.
Are 1 and 2 correct?
The second part of this that is confusing, it says that I CAN add MX records to the domain for sending AND receiving as long as I have the subdomain configured. That is the confusing part.
---
### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 3:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/12 "2024-05-10T15:53:26Z")
Believe those are both correct, yes. To be sure you can verify with domain registrar support + mail sender support team.
Do you plan to set up processing for incoming mail, or only sending notifications?
Here is support guide for Brevo, this was simpler to setup than mailgun:
> **[Send transactional emails using Brevo SMTP](https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/7924908994450-Send-transactional-emails-using-Brevo-SMTP)**
>
> Brevo SMTP is the SMTP relay of Brevo. It integrates with any website or email client to both trigger the email and incorporate data stored outside of Brevo, such as shipping information or the tot...
Have setup e-mail sending for that with a subdomain, but even more confusingly there is a second “technical sender” address with that which shows up as:
bounces-#########mail=subdomain.domain@ae.d.mailin.fr.
---
### Author:  [@forummaster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/forummaster)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 4:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/13 "2024-05-10T16:06:21Z")
> [@Architect](#):
>
> Do you plan to set up processing for incoming mail, or only sending notifications?
I had planned on only setting up sending emails.
What would be the purpose of receiving emails to the subdomain email address? I’m trying to think of why that would be needed.
As an aside, I set up a Nextcloud instance a while back, and I’m using [https://www.smtp2go.com/](https://www.smtp2go.com/) for email sending notifications and password resets, and it has worked flawlessly, and they have a free account for 1,000 emails/month. Their tech support responds within 5 minutes and are very helpful. I think I will go with them for email sending since it is free and works great for my needs.
---
### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 4:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/14 "2024-05-10T16:11:10Z")
> [@forummaster](#):
>
> What would be the purpose of receiving emails to the subdomain email address?
With that people can reply directly to e-mail notifications, and their reply will be automatically posted on the site topic. That is setup at this meta site if you are subscribed to e-mail notifications it says “reply to this email to respond.”
---
### Author:  [@forummaster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/forummaster)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 4:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/15 "2024-05-10T16:14:50Z")
> [@Architect](#):
>
> With that people can reply directly to e-mail notifications, and their reply will be automatically posted on the site topic.
Ah, that’s a nice feature for convenience. I don’t think people mind responding directly on the forum as most people are used to that. It seems like it will be too difficult for me to offer that based on everything I’ve written above unless I’m missing something.
---
### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 4:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/16 "2024-05-10T16:19:28Z")
May not be that difficult, here is their official guide for setting that up:
> [@Configure direct-delivery incoming email for self-hosted sites with Mail-Receiver](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configure-direct-delivery-incoming-email-for-self-hosted-sites-with-mail-receiver/49487):
>
> Discourse is all about enabling civilized discussion. While plenty of people like a web interface, e-mail is still the “hub” of many people’s online lives. That’s why sending e-mail is so important, and when you’re sending e-mail, you really want to be able to receive it, too. There are several reasons why: If e-mails “bounce” (they can’t be delivered for some reason), you need to know about that. Repeatedly sending e-mails that bounce will get your e-mails flagged as spam. Receiving e-ma…
---
### Author:  [@forummaster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/forummaster)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 4:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/17 "2024-05-10T16:28:22Z")
> [@Architect](#):
>
> May not be that difficult, here is their official guide for setting that up:
Thanks for that article. I’m confused again about MX records and Mailgun which they talk about in the article. This article says to remove the Mailgun MX records but in the previous article on Mailgun’s wiki it says they need to be there to receive emails.
I’m sure this is simple to understand once the correct documentation is presented. Or I could just be an idiot, LOL.
---
### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2024, 11:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/18 "2024-05-10T23:32:00Z")
That is confusing, probably opening a help ticket with mailgun if you have an account with them would be a good idea to make sure that is set correctly + check with domain registrar support.
With the mail receiving setup one other benefit to that is it can process and reply to e-mails from people who don’t have discourse accounts setup, don’t know if that would be helpful for your site.
---
### Author:  [@AJCxZ0](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AJCxZ0)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2024, 12:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-understanding-email-setup/307339/19 "2024-05-15T00:24:12Z")
As an email sender, you will want to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, especially since some major email service providers [now require it](https://easydmarc.com/email-authentication-for-google-and-yahoo).
There are several good guides on how to do this, but I suggest [EasyDMARC](https://easydmarc.com/) for guidance on setup and simple monitoring at no cost.
While I don’t host Discourse, I use Proton for MX and sending and Sendgrid for sending for my domains, neither of which are linked because Discourse called me a noob.