Email over SMTP

sol2flow sends email for invitations, password resets, email confirmations, sign-up approvals, security notices (for example "a passkey was added"), and notification digests. Every message has an HTML and a plain-text part and is written in the recipient's language.

note

Require email verification is on by default: new accounts, and people who change their email address, confirm the address with an emailed link. If your instance can't send email, turn it off in Admin → Authentication, or nobody can finish signing up. See Email verification.

Set up SMTP

1. Get SMTP credentials from your mail provider (or your own mail server). A dedicated sender address such as [email protected] works best.

2. Add to .env:

   MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
   MAIL_FROM="sol2flow <[email protected]>"
   SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
   SMTP_PORT=587
   SMTP_USER=[email protected]
   SMTP_PASSWORD=…
   SMTP_SECURE=false

3. Apply it: docker compose up -d.

4. Test it: on the sign-in page, choose Forgot password? for your own account and check that the email arrives.

Port	SMTP_SECURE	Encryption
587	false	STARTTLS (upgraded after connecting) — the usual choice
465	true	TLS from the first byte
25	false	server-to-server; often blocked by hosting providers

Deliverability

• Send from a domain you control, and publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC records for it as your mail provider describes. Without them, invitations tend to land in spam.
• MAIL_FROM must be an address your SMTP account may send as.
• Links in emails use APP_URL, so make sure it is the public HTTPS address.

Delivery and retries

Emails are queued and sent in the background, with retries when the SMTP server is unavailable. Nothing a user does waits for the mail server, and a failed email never undoes the change that triggered it. Failures are logged (see Troubleshooting).

Without SMTP

With MAIL_DRIVER=log (the default) messages are not sent: their subject and text, including links, are written to the app log (docker compose logs app). That's fine for a first test, but people can't receive invitations or reset their password.

Notification emails

Besides the emails that are always sent (invitations, password resets, security notices), people get digest emails about changes to their tasks. The instance-wide switch and schedule are in Admin → General; each person can opt out in their own settings. See Notifications.