Configuring incoming email to create new topics or group messages

[Discourse]

This guide explains how to configure Discourse to create new topics or group messages from incoming emails. It covers site settings, group configuration, and category settings.

Required user level: Administrator

Configure incoming email to create new topics or group messages

Discourse allows you to send emails to a special address to automatically create new topics in a category or new group messages. This feature is useful for integrating Discourse with external mailing lists, support ticket systems, or simply allowing users without accounts to post via email.

Summary

This guide covers the following:

• Enabling the core email-in site settings
• Configuring incoming emails for specific groups
• Configuring incoming emails for specific categories
• Understanding forwarded email behavior
• Special considerations for Discourse Hosted sites

Enable email-in site settings

Before you can create topics or group messages via email, you must enable the core email-in functionality at the site level.

1. Go to your site’s Admin panel
2. In the left sidebar, click Email then Settings
3. Search for each setting using the filter field and configure as needed

You can also navigate directly to /admin/config/email to access these settings.

email_in

This is the master switch for email-in functionality.

• Label: Enable email in
• Description: Allows creating topics and group messages via email.
• Default: Disabled

You must enable this setting before any other email-in configuration will work.

email_in_allowed_groups

This setting restricts which users are allowed to create topics or group messages via email.

• Label: Email in allowed groups
• Description: Only users in these groups can create topics or group messages via email. Leave blank to allow all users.
• Default: Empty (all users allowed)

To restrict email-in to specific groups (e.g., staff, moderators), enter the group names separated by commas.

enable_staged_users

This setting controls whether users who create topics via email are automatically staged (require approval).

• Label: Enable staged users
• Description: When enabled, users who create topics via email will be staged and require approval before they can post.
• Default: Enabled

If you disable this setting, users who create topics via email will be able to post immediately without approval.

For Discourse hosted sites, the enable_staged_users setting is disabled and hidden during the trial to prevent abuse. Once a subscription is started, the setting is unhidden. To ask for it to be enabled during your trial, contact team@discourse.org.

Staged users are special user accounts in Discourse created to support incoming emails from anyone. They have limited functionality:

• Can’t be mentioned or searched for
• Don’t receive digests
• Can only be notified of and reply to topics they started or were invited to
• Will be promoted to a normal user if they create an account using the same email address

Setting up incoming emails for a group

You can configure a group to accept incoming emails that create new group messages. This is useful for creating a group inbox that can be accessed via email.

The Incoming email field only appears if the email_in site setting is enabled and you are logged in as an administrator.

1. Go to the groups page (e.g., /g)
2. Click the group name you want to configure
3. Click Manage to access the group management page
4. Click the Interaction tab
5. Scroll down to the Incoming email section
6. Enter the custom incoming email address in the Custom incoming email address field
7. Check the Accept emails from anonymous users with no accounts box if you want to allow users without accounts to send emails to this group
8. Click Save to apply the changes

You can separate multiple email addresses using the | character. For example, group1@example.com|group2@example.com.

Group email field visibility

The Incoming email field only appears if:

• The email_in site setting is enabled
• You are logged in as an administrator
• The group is not an automatic (system) group

If the field does not appear, check that the email_in site setting is enabled and that you are logged in as an administrator.

Setting up incoming emails for a category

You can configure a category to accept incoming emails that create new topics. This is useful for creating a category that can be accessed via email.

1. Go to the category page (e.g., /c/<category_slug>)
2. Click the wrench icon to edit the category
3. On the Edit category page, click the Show Advanced toggle in the top-right of the page header
4. Click the Settings tab
5. Scroll down to the Email section
6. Enter the custom incoming email address in the Custom incoming email address field
7. Check the Accept emails from anonymous users with no accounts box if you want to allow users without accounts to send emails to this category
8. Check the Category mirrors a mailing list box if the category is connected to an external mailing list and all posts originate from email
9. Click Save in the banner at the bottom of the page to apply the changes

You can separate multiple email addresses using the | character. For example, category1@example.com|category2@example.com.

Custom incoming email address

Enter the custom incoming email address that will be used to create new topics in this category. For example, support@example.com.

Accept emails from anonymous users with no accounts

When enabled, users who do not have an account on your Discourse site can send emails to this category to create new topics. These users will be automatically created as staged users (if enable_staged_users is enabled) or as active users (if enable_staged_users is disabled).

Category mirrors a mailing list

Enable this if the category is connected to an external mailing list and all posts originate from email. When enabled:

• Staged users will not receive web notifications for topics in this category
• The email_in_allowed_groups restriction is bypassed for posts arriving via the mailing list address

This setting is useful when you are mirroring an external mailing list to Discourse and want to avoid notifying staged users who have not yet been approved.

Forwarded emails behavior

When users forward emails to Discourse, the forwarded content is handled according to the forwarded_emails_behaviour site setting. This setting controls how forwarded emails are processed and displayed in Discourse.

The forwarded_emails_behaviour setting has three options:

• Hide: The forwarded content is hidden from the post. Only the original email content is visible.
• Quote: The forwarded content is quoted at the bottom of the post, similar to how email clients handle forwarded messages.
• Create replies: A new reply is created for each forwarded email, rather than creating a new topic.

To configure this setting:

1. Go to your site’s Admin panel
2. In the left sidebar, click Email then Settings
3. Search for forwarded_emails_behaviour using the filter field
4. Select the desired option from the dropdown menu
5. Click Save to apply the changes

The forwarded_emails_behaviour setting applies to all incoming emails, regardless of whether they are sent to a group or a category.

Special instructions for Discourse Hosted sites

If you are on Discourse hosting, you need to enable the “Accept incoming emails sent to” checkbox in the “Accept incoming emails” section of the email settings:

1. Go to your site’s Admin panel
2. In the left sidebar, click Email then Settings
3. Scroll down to the “Accept incoming emails” section
4. Check the Accept incoming emails sent to checkbox
5. Click Save to apply the changes

Discourse Hosted sites use a special email domain for incoming emails ({YOUR_PREFIX}.discoursemail.com). Any of the following formats can be used for the incoming email address:

• {ANYTHING}@{YOUR_PREFIX}.discoursemail.com - where:
  • {ANYTHING} is the custom incoming email address you configure
  • {YOUR_PREFIX} is the unique prefix assigned to your site. This should match the suggested first set of characters before the + sign as seen under the Accept incoming emails sent to setting
• {YOUR_PREFIX}+{ANYTHING}@discoursemail.com

Additionally, if you’re a hosted customer and want to use a truly unique email address that does not match one of the above formats, you can do so by setting up the email address through a third-party email provider and forwarding all email received at that address to your site. You must enable the Accept incoming emails sent to option and use the email address shown below that option as the forwarding address.

Additional resources

• Configuring SMTP settings
• Staged users
• Troubleshoot reply by email

Last edited by @MarkDoerr 2026-06-24T22:02:28Z

Last checked by @MarkDoerr 2026-06-24T22:02:47Z

Check document

Perform check on document: