Solution for privateemail configurations

Support Self-hosting

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around finding a solution for configuring privateemail with Discourse. Mohamed_farahat shared their experience and finally found the solution after a month of investigation. The main issue was with the ‘from’ field, which Discourse defaults to noreply@yourdomain.com, but privateemail SMTP server requires the mailbox address. To solve this, Mohamed_farahat provided steps to adjust the containers/app.yml file, including using port587, uncommenting DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS, and setting the notification_email to the mailbox address. Other users, such as anon23840344, llc1990, Enrico_Enrico, Reliant313, and ascension.forum, have confirmed the solution works and suggested it should be included in the official documentation. The solution is still working as of June4,2025.

1

several users tried to configure Discourse with privateemail without luck including me. you can read more about this problem here “https://meta.discourse.org/t/cant-get-admin-email-to-send-working-with-using-namecheap-email-server/57423”. but after a month of investigations, i finally found the solution.

the main problem was the “from” field
discourse by default use noreply@yourdomain.com for notification emails but privateemail SMTP server needs the mail address of the mailbox you have.

there is no why to solve this issue while installation @codinghorror so after installation you have to re-open containers/app.yml file and make the following adjustments.

SMTP Configurations

  DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS: mail.privateemail.com
  DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT: 587
  DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME: mailBox@yourdomain.com
  DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD: "****************"
  #DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS: true          # (optional, default true)

1- use port 587
2- use your mailbox address instead of mailBox@yourdomain.com
3- uncomment DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS and set it to true

Notification E-Mails Configurations

At the end of the file you would find

## Any custom commands to run after building
run:
  - exec: echo "Beginning of custom commands"
  ## If you want to set the 'From' email address for your first registration, uncomment and change:
  ## After getting the first signup email, re-comment the line. It only needs to run once.
  #- exec: rails r "SiteSetting.notification_email='mailBox@yourdomain.com'"
  - exec: echo "End of custom commands"

1- uncomment - exec: rails r "SiteSetting.notification_email='mailBox@yourdomain.com'"
2- use your mailbox address instead of mailBox@yourdomain.com

now ./launcher rebuild app and have fun :wink:

2

Brillante Arbeit, danke. Das sollte in die offizielle Dokumentation aufgenommen werden. Cheers.

3

Für Anfänger, die nicht wissen, wo sie die Datei containers/app.yml finden, hier der vollständige Pfad: /var/discourse/containers/app.yml

4

Ich suche seit etwa 4 Stunden nach einer Lösung für das gleiche Problem.
Ich stimme zu, dass dies in der Dokumentation enthalten sein sollte.
Bitte wirklich.

5

Dieser Beitrag löst auch 5 Jahre später noch Probleme. Vielen Dank für das Teilen.

6

Bestätigt, dass dies immer noch wie am 04.06.2025 funktioniert :smiley: