We strongly recommend using a dedicated email service. Email server setup and maintenance is _very_ difficult even for experienced system administrators, and getting any part of the complex required email setup wrong means your email won't be delivered, or worse, delivered erratically.
**Please note that in any email provider, you _must_ verify and use the subdomain, e.g. `discourse.example.com`. If you verify the domain only, e.g. `example.com`, mail will not be configured correctly.**
Enter these values when prompted by `./discourse-setup` per the [install guide](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md#edit-discourse-configuration):
NOTE: Elastic Email currently doesn't fully integrate with Discourse's internal unsubscribe mechanism and hence puts an additional UNSUBSCRIBE link at the bottom of each sent email. If this is a problem for your needs, consider using other providers. [See discussion here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/remove-or-merge-elastic-email-unsubscribe/70236).
When using a third party email service, you will need to enable VERP, or activate their **webhooks** in order to handle bouncing emails. [Full details here.](https://meta.discourse.org/t/handling-bouncing-e-mails/45343)
