Mail
Setting up mail is completely optional. Every part of Loombre — inviting someone, recovering a forgotten password — works without it, by handing along a link or a temporary password yourself instead (see Inviting people and the "Resetting a password" section of Users & permissions). Configuring mail just lets Loombre send those same things by email automatically, and lets people recover their own forgotten password without asking you at all.
The five things Loombre needs
Wherever your mail server lives — a service built for exactly this, your own mail server, or one your internet provider runs — Loombre asks for the same five things, all in one place:
- The mail server's address. Where Loombre connects to send mail.
- The port. Which door on that address to knock on — 587 is the common choice.
- Connection security. Whether the connection starts encrypted, or starts plain and is upgraded partway through, or — rarely, and only for a mail server on your own private network — isn't encrypted at all.
- Sign-in details, if your mail server needs them. A username and password, kept separately from everything else and never shown again once saved. Some private, same-network mail servers need no sign-in at all, which is a legitimate choice too.
- The from-address, the address your mail appears to come from, and an optional from-name to go alongside it.
None of this is provider-specific — the same five fields work for every provider in the table below, and for a private mail server too.
(screenshot coming soon)
Your server's own public address
Alongside the five settings above, Loombre also needs to know the web address people use to reach your server from outside your own network — set once, separately, as your server's public web address. Every link Loombre puts in an email — an invitation, a password reset — is built from that address alone, deliberately, so the link works no matter who opens the email or where they open it from. Leave it blank, and Loombre won't send any mail at all, even with everything else above filled in.
(screenshot coming soon)
Sending a test message
Once you've filled in the settings above, a Send test email button sends a real message through your own mail server, the same way an invitation or password-reset email goes out — a genuine end-to-end check, not a simulation. If it succeeds, a real email arrives. If it fails, the reason — whatever your mail server actually said — shows up right there, and again later on the Jobs screen if you want to check back.
(screenshot coming soon)
Choosing a mail provider
For anything beyond these five settings — creating an account, verifying a domain, raising a sending limit — each provider's own current instructions are one click away below; those details change on their own schedule, so this page doesn't try to repeat them.
| Provider | Server address | Port | Connection security | The one thing to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo, SMTP2GO, or Mailgun — services built for exactly this, recommended if your Loombre is reachable from the internet | Brevo: smtp-relay.brevo.com · SMTP2GO: mail.smtp2go.com · Mailgun: smtp.mailgun.org | 587 | Starts plain, upgrades to encrypted | Sign in with credentials generated inside that service's own account — not the password you use to log into the service itself. All three offer a free tier (roughly 100–1,000 messages a month depending on which one), plenty for invitations and password resets on a household server. |
| Gmail or Google Workspace | smtp.gmail.com | 587 | Starts plain, upgrades to encrypted | Requires two-factor sign-in turned on for the account first; the sign-in password Loombre uses is a separate 16-character "app password" generated afterward, not the regular account password. |
| Outlook.com or Microsoft 365 | smtp.office365.com | 587 | Starts plain, upgrades to encrypted | On a Microsoft 365 account, this kind of sign-in is switched off by default and has to be turned on for the mailbox first, by whoever administers that Microsoft 365 account. |
| Fastmail | smtp.fastmail.com | 587 | Starts plain, upgrades to encrypted | Requires a separate app password generated for Loombre specifically — not available on Fastmail's most basic plan tier. |
| Proton Mail | 127.0.0.1 (Loombre's own server) | 1025 | Starts plain, upgrades to encrypted | Needs Proton's own Bridge program installed and left running on the same machine as Loombre — Bridge is what Loombre actually talks to, not Proton directly — and a paid Proton plan. |
| iCloud Mail | smtp.mail.me.com | 587 | Starts plain, upgrades to encrypted | Requires two-factor sign-in turned on for the Apple Account first, then a separate "app-specific password" — the regular Apple Account password won't work. |
| Your own mail server, or one your internet provider runs | Ask whoever runs it | Ask whoever runs it | Ask whoever runs it | The same five settings above are all it needs — there's no separate convention to follow. |
See also
- Inviting people and the "Resetting a password" section of Users & permissions — what mail sends automatically once it's set up.
- The "If someone tries to use an email address already on another account" section of Users & permissions — another notice mail sends automatically, and the honest delta when mail isn't configured at all.
- The Operator Guide's mail deliverability notes — the technical side of getting mail actually delivered, not just sent.