discourse/docs/MAILING-LIST-SETUP.MD
Benjamin Kampmann d32cb55837 Add public-inbox to Email-In-Feature
- Adds the advanced option to accept email from non-users per category email-address
 - Adds tests covering the new feature
 - Adds UI to configure this feature in the frontend
2014-02-28 16:53:58 +01:00

2.8 KiB

App Setup

Acting like a Mailing list is disabled per default in Discourse. This guide shows you through the way to enable and configure it.

Admin UI Setup

First of, you need a POP3s enabled server receiving your email. Then make sure to enable "reply_by_email_enabled" and configured the server appropriately in your Admin-Settings under "Email":
enable-reply-by-email

Once that is in place, you can enable the "email_in"-feature globally in the same email-section. If you provide another "email_in_address" all emails arriving in the inbox to that address will be handeled and posted to the "email_in_category" (defaults to "uncategorised"). For spam protection only users of a high trust level can post via email per default. You can change this via the "email_in_min_trust" setting.

Per category email address

Once "email_in" is enabled globally a new configuration option appears in your category settings dialog allowing you to specify an email-address for that category. Emails going to the previously configured inbox to that email-address will be posted in this category instead of the default configuration. Attention User-Permissions and the minimum trust levels still apply.

Additionally, by checking the "accept non-user emails"-checkbox in the category settings, emails to the given email but from unknown email-addresses will be posted in the category by the System-User in a quoted fashion, showing the original email-address and content in the quotes.

Troubleshooting

You might want to allow users to opt-in to receive all posts via email with the option on the bottom:
enable-mailing-list-mode

As there is no way to enforce subject lines, you might want to lower minimum topic length, too
lower-min-topic-length

And as some emails may have the same subject, allow duplicate titles might be another option you want to look at
allow-duplicate-titles

Suggested User Preferences

suggested-user-prefs

FAQ

Q: Why is this needed?

A: No matter how good a forum is, sometimes members need to ask a question and all they have is their mail client.

Q: What if a message is received from an email address which doesn't belong to an approved, registered user?

A: It will be rejected, and a notification email sent to the moderator. Check your POP mailbox to see the rejected email content.

Q: Who did this?

A: @therealx, @yesthatallen and @ligthyear