Customize email sender

You can configure Kinde to send emails from your own preferred email provider. This means your users will receive communications from your business’s email address, and not Kinde’s.

There are also other benefits, such as better control of email deliverability, analytics and tracking, scalability, email compliance, etc.

Emails that will be sent from you

When you set your own email provider details, the following emails will be sent from your preferred email address:

Sign up and sign in emails
One-time passcode (OTP) emails
Password reset codes

Emails will come from no-reply@kinde.com if you choose not to set this up.

Emails sent from Kinde

Even if you enter custom sender details, these emails will still be sent from Kinde.

Invitation to join business team - triggered by manual or API addition of team member
Warnings and notifications of data export

Requirements and recommendations

You can only have one email sender set up in Kinde
You need to set up provider details before making your environment live
The provider must support user/password sign in and TLS
Check the limitations of your provider (e.g. Microsoft O365 has daily send limits). We recommend using bulk email service providers such as SendGrid, Mailgun, Mailchimp, Postmark, etc.

Add email sender SMTP details

If you are setting this up and your production environment is already live, we recommend testing this in a staging or test environment first.

In Kinde, go to Settings > Environment > Messaging > Email Sender.
Enter a Sender name. This is usually your business name, but might be a specific person.
Enable the Use custom sender switch. The SMTP details section opens.

Enter the Sender email. This is the address your users will receive emails from.
Enter the SMTP details of your email provider:
- Server name - this will be something like yourbusiness.smtp.providername.com
- Port - use the one recommended by your email provider
- Sign-in details - Username and password
Select Send test email. This sends a test email to the email address you are logged into Kinde with.
If the test is successful, select Save.
If the test is not successful, check the SMTP details (step 5) and try sending a test email again. If this does not work, see the troubleshooting section below.

Edit email sender

We recommend testing any changes to SMTP details in a non-production environment first.

In Kinde, go to Settings > Environment > Messaging > Email Sender.
Change any of the details that you want.
Select Send test email. This sends a test email to the email address you are logged into Kinde with.
If the test is successful, select Save.

Reset email sender

You should only do this if your environment is not live.

In Kinde, go to Settings > Environment > Messaging > Email Sender.
Disable the Use custom sender switch. This reverts back to use the default Kinde email address and removes SMTP details.
Select Save.

Email sending alerts

If your SMTP provider starts rejecting emails from Kinde, for example because the password was changed at the provider, Kinde lets you know in the dashboard. This helps you fix the problem before your users miss sign-in codes and password reset emails.

Error banners

When an email fails to send using your custom SMTP details:

Home page - An Email sending issue banner appears. Select View email settings to go to the Email Sender page.
Alternatively, if there are other issues at the same time, a Multiple issues detected banner appears instead, with a link to the status page.
Status page - Open the status page by selecting View status page on the Multiple issues detected home banner. The Email sender card appears there with an error when custom SMTP sending has failed.
Email Sender page - A banner at the top of the page shows when the last attempt failed and the latest sending error.

Kinde only keeps the most recent failure. If another email fails, the banner shows the newer error.

What triggers an alert

An alert is shown when your SMTP server rejects an email because of a problem with your sender settings, for example:

The username or password is wrong
Kinde can’t connect to the server or port
The server rejects your sender email address
The server refuses to relay the email, or blocks it for policy reasons

Problems with an individual recipient, such as an email address that doesn’t exist or a full mailbox, don’t trigger an alert. These don’t mean anything is wrong with your settings.

Alerts are only shown for your custom SMTP sender. If you use Kinde’s default email sender, Kinde monitors delivery for you.

Clear an alert

The alert clears automatically when:

An email sends successfully through your SMTP server.
You save your email sender details.
You send a successful test email using the same details that are saved. If you test new details, you need to save them too. Kinde keeps using your saved details for real emails until you do.

To fix the problem:

In Kinde, go to Settings > Environment > Messaging > Email Sender.
Read the latest sending error in the banner at the top of the page.
Check your Sender email and SMTP details, and update the password if it has changed at your provider.
Select Send test email.
If the test is successful, select Save. The alert clears.

If the error continues, see Troubleshoot the SMTP provider connection.

Troubleshoot the SMTP provider connection

Sometimes things go wrong with server connections and external provider configuration. There’s only so much we can assist with on our side, but if you get an SMTP error, check your provider documentation.

If emails stop sending after your custom sender was working, go to Settings > Environment > Messaging > Email Sender. The banner at the top of the page shows the latest sending error from the last failed attempt. See Email sending alerts.

Here’s a list of errors you might see (from the IETF), and here’s link to SMTP docs from some common providers.