Sending emails with Odoo
Using your email domain in Odoo
Documents in Odoo (a CRM opportunity, a sales order, an invoice …) have a discussion thread, called chatter.
When you post a message in the chatter, this message is sent by email to the followers of the document. If a follower replies to the message, the reply updates the chatter, and Odoo relays the reply to the followers.
Emails from your users to partners (customers, vendors) are sent from the email address of your users. Similarly, emails from partners to users are sent from the email address of the partners. This allows you to recognize at a glance who sent an email relayed by Odoo.
If your database is hosted on our cloud (Odoo Online or Odoo.sh), it is not necessary to add an outgoing email server to send emails from your custom domain. You can enjoy this feature by using the default Odoo email server.
Important
The Odoo server is subject to a daily email limit to prevent abuse. The default limit is 200 emails sent per day for databases with an Enterprise subscription. This limit can be increased under certain conditions. See our FAQ or contact support for more information.
However, it is recommended that you configure your domain name to ensure that emails from your users reach your partners, rather than being considered spam.
For the same reason, we recommend that you always give your users an email address from a domain you manage, rather than a generic email address (gmail.com, outlook.com, etc.).
Be SPF compliant
The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) protocol allows the owner of a domain name to specify which servers are allowed to send email from that domain. When a server receives an incoming email, it checks whether the IP address of the sending server is on the list of allowed IPs according to the SPF record of the sender.
Note
The SPF verification is performed on the domain mentioned in the Return-Path field of the email. In the case of an email sent by Odoo, this domain corresponds to the value of the mail.catchall.domain key in the database system parameters.
See the documentation on incoming emails.
The SPF policy of a domain is set using a TXT record. How to create or modify a TXT record depends on the provider hosting the DNS zone of your domain name. In order for the verification to work properly, each domain can only have one SPF record.
If your domain name does not yet have an SPF record, the content of the record to create is as follows:
v=spf1 include:_spf.odoo.com ~all
If your domain name already has an SPF record, you need to update this record (and do not create a new one).
Example
If your TXT record is v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all, you need to edit it to add include:_spf.odoo.com: v=spf1 include:_spf.odoo.com include:_spf.google.com ~all
You can check if your SPF record is valid with a free tool like MXToolbox SPF.
Enable DKIM
The DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) allows you to authenticate your emails with a digital signature.
When sending an email, the Odoo server includes a unique DKIM signature in the headers. The recipient’s server decrypts this signature using the DKIM record in your domain name. If the signature and the key contained in the record match, this guarantees that your message is authentic and has not been altered during transport.
To enable DKIM, you must add a CNAME record to the DNS zone of your domain name:
odoo._domainkey IN CNAME odoo._domainkey.odoo.com.
Tip
If your domain name is mycompany.com, you need to create a subdomain odoo._domainkey.mycompany.com whose canonical name is odoo._domainkey.odoo.com..
How to create or modify a CNAME record depends on the provider hosting the DNS zone of your domain name. The most common providers are list below.
You can check if your DKIM record is valid with a free tool like DKIM Core. If a selector is asked, enter odoo.
Check your DMARC policy
The Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) is a protocol that unifies SPF and DKIM. The instructions contained in the DMARC record of a domain name tell the destination server what to do with an incoming email that fails the SPF and/or DKIM check.
There are three DMARC policies: - p=none - p=quarantine - p=reject
p=quarantine and p=reject instruct the server that receives an email to quarantine that email or ignore it if the SPF and/or DKIM check fails.
If your domain name uses DMARC and has defined one of these policies, it is therefore imperative to be SPF compliant or to enable DKIM.
Danger
Yahoo or AOL are examples of email providers with a DMARC policy set to p=reject. We strongly advise against using an @yahoo.com or @aol.com address for your users. These emails will never reach their recipient.
p=none is used for the domain owner to receive reports about entities using their domain. It should not impact the deliverability if the DMARC check fails.
You can check the DMARC record of a domain name with a tool like MXToolbox DMARC.
If one of your partners, customer or vendor, uses DMARC and has defined one of these policies, the Odoo server cannot relay emails from this partner to your users.
You need to handle user notifications in Odoo, or replace the email address of the partner with a default email address.
SPF, DKIM & DMARC documentation of common providers
To fully test your configuration, the tool Mail-Tester will give you a full overview of the content and configuration you have in one email sent! Mail-Tester can also be used for other lesser known providers.
Use a default email address
To force the email address from which emails are sent, you need to create the following key in the System Parameters of the database:
If
mail.default.fromis set, and contains a full email address, all outgoing emails are sent from the given address. This is a requirement to use Outlook with Odoo.
You access the System Parameters in developer mode in the menu.