---
title: Email Functionality
label: Overview
order: 10
desc: Payload uses NodeMailer to allow you to send emails smoothly from your app. Set up email functions such as password resets, order confirmations and more.
keywords: email, overview, config, configuration, documentation, Content Management System, cms, headless, javascript, node, react, express
---

### Introduction

Payload comes ready to send your application's email. Whether you simply need built-in password reset
email to work or you want customers to get an order confirmation email, you're almost there. Payload makes use of
[NodeMailer](https://nodemailer.com) for email and won't get in your way for those already familiar.

For email to send from your Payload server, some configuration is required. The settings you provide will be set
in the `email` property object of your payload init call. Payload will make use of the transport that you have configured for it for things like reset password or verifying new user accounts and email send methods are available to you as well on your payload instance.

### Configuration

**Three ways to set it up**

1. **Default**: When email is not needed, a mock email handler will be created and used when nothing is provided. This is ideal for development environments and can be changed later when ready to [go to production](/docs/production/deployment).
1. **Recommended**: Set the `transportOptions` and Payload will do the set up for you.
1. **Advanced**: The `transport` object can be assigned a nodemailer transport object set up in your server scripts and given for Payload to use.

The following options are configurable in the `email` property object as part of the options object when calling payload.init().

| Option                   | Description                                                                                                                                                                                  |
| ------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **`fromName`** \*        | The name part of the From field that will be seen on the delivered email                                                                                                                     |
| **`fromAddress`** \*     | The email address part of the From field that will be used when delivering email                                                                                                             |
| **`transport`**          | The NodeMailer transport object for when you want to do it yourself, not needed when transportOptions is set                                                                                 |
| **`transportOptions`**   | An object that configures the transporter that Payload will create. For all the available options see the [NodeMailer documentation](https://nodemailer.com/smtp/) or see the examples below |
| **`logMockCredentials`** | If set to true and no transport/transportOptions, ethereal credentials will be logged to console on startup                                                                                  |

_\* An asterisk denotes that a property is required._

### Use SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, also known as SMTP can be passed in using the `transportOptions` object on the `email` options.

**Example email part using SMTP:**

```ts
payload.init({
  email: {
    transportOptions: {
      host: process.env.SMTP_HOST,
      auth: {
        user: process.env.SMTP_USER,
        pass: process.env.SMTP_PASS,
      },
      port: 587,
      secure: true, // use TLS
      tls: {
        // do not fail on invalid certs
        rejectUnauthorized: false,
      },
    },
    fromName: "hello",
    fromAddress: "hello@example.com",
  },
  // ...
});
```

<Banner type="warning">
  It is best practice to avoid saving credentials or API keys directly in your code, use [environment variables](/docs/configuration/overview#using-environment-variables-in-your-config).
</Banner>

### Use an email service

Many third party mail providers are available and offer benefits beyond basic SMTP. As an example your payload init could look this if you wanted to use SendGrid.com though the same approach would work for any other [NodeMailer transports](https://nodemailer.com/transports/) shown here or provided by another third party.

```ts
import payload from "payload";
import nodemailerSendgrid from "nodemailer-sendgrid";

const sendGridAPIKey = process.env.SENDGRID_API_KEY;

payload.init({
  ...(sendGridAPIKey
    ? {
        email: {
          transportOptions: nodemailerSendgrid({
            apiKey: sendGridAPIKey,
          }),
          fromName: "Admin",
          fromAddress: "admin@example.com",
        },
      }
    : {}),
});
```

### Use a custom NodeMailer transport

To take full control of the mail transport you may wish to use `nodemailer.createTransport()` on your server and provide it to Payload init.

```ts
import payload from "payload";
import nodemailer from "nodemailer";

const payload = require("payload");
const nodemailer = require("nodemailer");

const transport = await nodemailer.createTransport({
  host: process.env.SMTP_HOST,
  port: 587,
  auth: {
    user: process.env.SMTP_USER,
    pass: process.env.SMTP_PASS,
  },
});

payload.init({
  email: {
    fromName: "Admin",
    fromAddress: "admin@example.com",
    transport,
  },
  // ...
});
```

### Sending Mail

With a working transport you can call it anywhere you have access to payload by calling `payload.sendEmail(message)`. The `message` will contain the `to`, `subject` and `email` or `text` for the email being sent. To see all available message configuration options see [NodeMailer](https://nodemailer.com/message).

### Mock transport

By default, Payload uses a mock implementation that only sends mail to the [ethereal](https://ethereal.email) capture service that will never reach a user's inbox. While in development you may wish to make use of the captured messages which is why the payload output during server output helpfully logs this out on the server console.

To see ethereal credentials, add `logMockCredentials: true` to the email options. This will cause them to be logged to console on startup.

```ts
payload.init({
  email: {
    fromName: "Admin",
    fromAddress: "admin@example.com",
    logMockCredentials: true, // Optional
  },
  // ...
});
```

**Console output when starting payload with a mock email instance and logMockCredentials: true**

```
[06:37:21] INFO  (payload): Starting Payload...
[06:37:22] INFO  (payload): Payload Demo Initialized
[06:37:22] INFO  (payload): listening on 3000...
[06:37:22] INFO  (payload): Connected to MongoDB server successfully!
[06:37:23] INFO  (payload): E-mail configured with mock configuration
[06:37:23] INFO  (payload): Log into mock email provider at https://ethereal.email
[06:37:23] INFO  (payload): Mock email account username: hhav5jw7doo4euev@ethereal.email
[06:37:23] INFO  (payload): Mock email account password: VNdGcvDZeyEhtuPBqf
```

The mock email handler is used when payload is started with neither `transport` or `transportOptions` to know how to deliver email.

<Banner type="warning">
  The randomly generated email account username and password will be different each time the Payload server starts.
</Banner>

### Using multiple mail providers

Payload supports the use of a single transporter of email, but there is nothing stopping you from having more. Consider a use case where sending bulk email is handled differently than transactional email and could be done using a [hook](/docs/hooks/overview).
