Toggle navigation

How to use my own email servers to send and receive messages in Odoo

When is it needed

You need it if you use Odoo Community or Enterprise.

What if I use Odoo Online

You are done! Odoo Online comes up with an embedded and ready-to-use email server (@yourcompany.odoo.com). We recommend to keep this default setting as is as it is really convenient.

Indeed, while it is branded by Odoo, the visible source of any message sent from Odoo will be your personal email address (your Odoo login). Your contacts will therefore trust your messages.

How does it work when a contact replies to an email sent from Odoo

Default reply-to is a generic address used to automatically route any incoming email to the discussion thread of the origin business object (opportunity, order, task, etc.) and to the inbox of all its followers. By default this address is "catchall@" but it can be changed. Thanks to it, you get a perfect message thread in Odoo and you don't pollute your external email box with Odoo-related topics.

How to use my own email servers

You need to be a system admin to set this up. Go to Settings ‣ General Settings and check External Email Servers (watch out: this checkbox only shows up after Odoo 10). Then, go through the following steps.

Set an outgoing email server for outbound messages

You need the SMTP data of your email provider (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, etc.) as well as your admin credentials. Once all the information has been filled out, click on Test Connection.

Set an incoming email server for inbound messages

Fill out the form according to your email provider’s settings. Leave the Actions to Perform on Incoming Mails blank. Once all the information has been filled out, click on TEST & CONFIRM.

Set the domain name

Enter the domain name of your email servers (e.g. mycompany.com) in General Settings.

Create a catchall address

Create a catchall address in your email server settings. We advise you to use "catchall@" so that everything works out straight away. If you want to use another alias, you have extra steps in Odoo:

  • Activate the developer mode from your Settings Dashboard.
  • Refresh your screen. Then go to Settings ‣ Technical ‣ Parameters ‣ System Parameters and enter your custom catchall alias in mail.catchall.alias.

How to perfectly combine Odoo Discuss and my traditional email tool

Odoo Discuss is a perfect tool to send and read messages related to business objects. But it doesn't aim to replace a full-featured email software (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, etc.). We recommend to take the most out of both systems without mingling them: What is related to Odoo business objects or applications goes into Odoo; What is not stays into your external email boxes.

To do so, create specific email aliases to use in Odoo (to generate leads or opportunities, helpdesk tickets, etc.). If you take an email alias already used for messaging outside of Odoo, incoming messages will land into both systems. This will negatively impact your productivity when it comes to process them.