# Is an email address required for deployment?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic/410508
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [August 20, 2026, 6:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic/410508 "2026-08-20T06:40:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![WuBarlynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4bbf92/32.png) [@WuBarlynn](https://meta.discourse.org/u/WuBarlynn)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2026, 6:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic/410508/1 "2026-08-20T06:40:27Z")

</div>

I want to deploy this on a server, but I don’t have a mail server. Can I deploy it without configuring an email address?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![kddkd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/df705f/32.png) [@kddkd](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kddkd)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2026, 7:35am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic/410508/2 "2026-08-20T07:35:09Z")

</div>

You can enter an email address, such as a QQ email, during deployment. After that, you can manually create an administrator account via a command to log in to the backend and view the website.

Subsequently, you can manually specify a working email address in the YAML configuration to send system notifications.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Moin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/moin/32/554653_2.png) [@Moin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Moin)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2026, 7:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic/410508/3 "2026-08-20T07:59:35Z")

</div>

SMTP is optional now.

From [https://meta.discourse.org/t/self-hosting-discourse-just-got-a-whole-lot-easier/393915:](https://meta.discourse.org/t/self-hosting-discourse-just-got-a-whole-lot-easier/393915:)

> [@Self-Hosting Discourse Just Got a Whole Lot Easier](https://meta.discourse.org/t/self-hosting-discourse-just-got-a-whole-lot-easier/393915/1):
>
> To alleviate this, we’ve made SMTP optional. The new installer allows you to skip SMTP setup entirely by relying on Discourse ID for login.
> 
> SMTP setup was always the number one issue people setting up Discourse for the first time struggled with, so we are excited to finally remove this hurdle in our install.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![NateDhaliwal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/natedhaliwal/32/313494_2.png) [@NateDhaliwal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NateDhaliwal)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2026, 9:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic/410508/4 "2026-08-20T09:00:48Z")

</div>

On another note, mail servers like Mailgun (100 emails/day) and Brevo (300 emails/day) are free.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/system/32/443519_2.png) [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2026, 9:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic/410508/5 "2026-09-19T09:01:09Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.