Keep your existing mail

When you answer no to Host email on this server?, your addresses and mailboxes stay where they are. Eigen hosts no mail. It still sends its own mail, like sign-in codes, invitations, and share notifications, through a relay you name at setup. This page covers what that looks like and how to check that the mail goes out.

What changes without hosted mail

• There is no Mail app. It disappears from the app switcher and the command palette, and so do the "Mail to…" actions and the IMAP card on the Integrations page. Opening /mail shows Mail is turned off on this server.
• When setup asks Which mail domain will you use?, answer the domain your addresses are on now. Everyone then signs in to Eigen with the email address they already have: jane@example.com at Proton Mail is jane@example.com in Eigen too. Their mailboxes live wherever that domain's mail is hosted, so they keep using the mail app they have.
• Calendar and Contacts work as on any Eigen, calendar and contacts apps included.
• When someone outside Eigen answers a calendar invitation, the answer lands in the organizer's own mailbox. Eigen does not update that guest's status on the event.

Name a relay

Everything Eigen sends goes out through the relay you named in the last setup question. Without one, Eigen sends no email at all: no codes, no invitations, no notifications. Setup warns when you leave it empty.

No relay yet? Pick one in Choose a mail relay, then run ./eigen setup again. It keeps your other answers.

Setup lists no mail DNS records in this mode. Your mail domain keeps the records your mail provider set. A relay service that sends from your domain, like Brevo or Postmark, has you verify the domain first, usually with an SPF include and a DKIM key of its own. Add those beside the records you have.

Check it in Admin

Sign in as the owner, go to Admin, and click Settings in the sidebar.

1. Under Server, the Mail row reads "No mailboxes; mail goes out through" and the name of your relay. "No mailboxes and no relay" means Eigen sends no email.
2. Under Mail, the Sender address is the address Eigen's own mail comes from. You picked it when you finished the setup. The relay must accept it.
3. Mail that a person causes, like a share notification or a calendar invitation, comes from the sender address with their name, like Ada via Acme <noreply@example.com>, and replies go to them. If your relay lets you send from every address on your mail domain, turn on Relay sends as users. That mail then comes from the person's own address.
4. Click Send test mail. It sends one email from you to you, the way a share notification goes out. If it fails, Eigen shows the relay's answer. Save your changes first: the test uses the saved sender.

Server settings describes the rest of that page.