Email client config when using external SMTP server

[avatar1024]

Sorry for the probably stupid question but I've just set-up an external smtp server on Cloudron and I am puzzled by the SMTP config for email clients.

In my desktop email clients I can now send email using the smtp configs provided by the external service (Forwardemail), but it still also works using the old Cloudron config (i.e. using my.domain.coop + my Cloudron users credentials).

Does this mean that even when configuring Cloudron to use an external SMTP server for outbound email, the internal Cloudron smtp server still works and can still be used? Or is it the case that using the Cloudron smtp config still works but the email is somehow still routed through the external service?

[nebulon]

So your email clients can and should use the Cloudron email config (my.domain and cloudron authentication) to submit emails for sending. Cloudron internally will then relay the emails according to the configuration.

Basically just configure the email relay in your Cloudron and that should be then transparent to the email clients as such.

[nebulon]

Not sure if I understand this correctly, but using an external SMTP server in Cloudron is using that as the relay to submit mails from your accounts to other mail servers. The mail clients itself will still talk to the mail server on Cloudron just like before.

Maybe https://docs.cloudron.io/email/#relay-outbound-mails sheds more light on your question?

[avatar1024]

@nebulon Thanks for your response. I had read the documentation before. As far as I understand setting up the external SMTP server means that cloudron uses this (in the exemple smtp.forwardemail.net) to send emails instead of the internal SMTP server (my.domain.coop).

Before I setup the external server, my desktop clients were configured to send emails using my.domain.coop + my cloudron credentials for that particular mailbox.

Now it works either using:

• the exact same config as before
• using the settings from the external SMTP server provider, in that case, smtp.forwardemail.net + credentials provided by forward email *@domain.coop + password.

My question is:
If I keep using the same config as before for sending emails from my client, i.e. my.domain.coop + cloudron credentials, does Cloudron still somehow pass that on to the external SMTP server, or is it sent by cloudron internal smtp server?

Or am I missing something?

[nebulon]

So your email clients can and should use the Cloudron email config (my.domain and cloudron authentication) to submit emails for sending. Cloudron internally will then relay the emails according to the configuration.

Basically just configure the email relay in your Cloudron and that should be then transparent to the email clients as such.

[avatar1024]

@nebulon wonderful, thank you for the clarification!