# Understanding email in functionality

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/understanding-email-in-functionality/74097
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** email
**Created:** [November 15, 2017, 11:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/understanding-email-in-functionality/74097 "2017-11-15T11:27:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![david](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/david/32/157490_2.png) [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2017, 11:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/understanding-email-in-functionality/74097/2 "2017-11-15T11:49:13Z")

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> [@Neil\_Brooks2](#):
>
> Does this person need to be an existing registered user for this to happen, or can Discourse be set up to allow anonymous posts by email?

There is a site setting “enable staged users”. If it is enabled, “staged” user accounts will be created for that email address. If it is disabled, the email will be bounced.

There’s a brief description of staged users at the top of this topic: [Configuring incoming email to create new topics or group messages](https://meta.discourse.org/t/start-a-new-topic-via-email-e-mail/62977)

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