Kavita provides email functionality out of the box to invite users, send reset password links, and more. We currently use a Google account that sends the emails and then auto deletes them. However, not all users want to put trust in another party and for this, Kavita offers KavitaEmail microService, so you can use your own SMTP service.
To get started, head over to the KavitaEmail GitHub and download a release, or use our Docker container.
docker run --name kavita-email -p 5003:5003 -e SMTP_HOST="" -e SMTP_PORT="" -e SMTP_USER="" -e SMTP_PASS="" -e SEND_ADDR="" -e DISP_NAME="" -e ALLOW_SENDTO="true" -d kizaing/kavitaemail:latest
To setup the mail service with docker it's highly recommended to use docker-compose. This allows both containers to be accessible to each other. Later in Kavita you would only need to type down
http://kavita-email:3001
in the SMTP service settings.
To do so just copy the config from "email" to the bottom and either create a new docker compose file or add it to your current Kavita compose.
version: '3'
services:
email:
image: kizaing/kavitaemail:latest
container_name: kavita-email
environment:
- SMTP_HOST=<your smtp hostname here>
- SMTP_PORT=<smtp port>
- SMTP_USER=<smtp username>
- SMTP_PASS=<smtp password>
- SEND_ADDR=<address you are sending emails from>
- DISP_NAME=<display name to use>
- ALLOW_SENDTO=<true/false if you want the service to email files for Kavita>
- SIZE_LIMIT=<size in bytes that your SMTP provider can handle for a single email. This is optional, defaults to 25MB>
ports: # Ports not needed to be opened if running with a stack
- "5003:5003"
restart: unless-stopped
Once you have set up your KavitaEmail service, you can now link your Kavita instance with KavitaEmail service. Navigate to Server Settings and under Email, you can change the URL to your local service (and port if needed). Press Test to ensure it works.