• My emails are not working, help!

    In the vast majority of cases this is simply due to a bad DNS configuration. Please check out our DNS settings page. You might also find one of the following domain provider guides helpful:

    To test your setup, have a look at "How do I know if my DNS is set correctly?" below.

  • The emails I send end up in the SPAM folders of my recipients!

    There are many reasons why your emails may be classified as SPAM. Here we outline the most common ones.

    1. Bad DNS setup

    If your (non SPAM) emails get delivered but end up in your recipients SPAM folders, this is most likely due to a misconfiguration (or lack thereof) of your DNS SPF record or your DNS DKIM record, or both.

    To fix your DNS setup, please see "How do I know if my DNS is set correctly?".

    2. Fresh DNS changes

    Have you recently fixed your DNS records but your emails are still seen as SPAM? Your changes may have not fully propagated yet. In most cases changes propagate within a few hours, but in some rare cases you may need to wait up to 48 hours.

    3. Fresh domain

    Some mail services classify all emails sent from recently registered domains as SPAM by default. Some domain reputation lists such as Spam Eating Monkey even list these domains. Additionally, domains not that recent but having never sent emails before may also see their emails considered as SPAM.

    Such behavior has been observed with large mail services, in particular with Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo.

    If that heppens to you, the solution is to mark a few of these emails as non SPAM, from the recipient side. If you can't ask your recipients to do so, you can do it yourself by sending to your own @gmail.com/@outlook.com/@yahoo.com addresses.

    That action teaches to these services that emails originating from your domain are actually legitimate, and the issue usually resolves itself within a day or two.

    4. Bad domain reputation

    Another possibility is that your domain has a bad reputation due to a bad email activity in the past (i.e. email addresses of that domain used to send unsollicited emails).

    Have a look at common blacklists, look up your domain reputation, and if you see your domain listed somewhere, ask for a delist. Of course this won't work if your domain continues to send unsollicited emails.

    5. Malformed or unsollicited emails

    It goes without saying, but unsollicited emails or emails with spammy or fraudulent content are most often classified as SPAM. The same applies to malformed emails (are you sending that email programmatically?).

    Not only such emails are unlikely to reach to your recipients' inboxes, but they also hurt your domain reputation. And perhaps more importantly, at postale.io we do not allow the sending of unsollicited emails. If you do, you run a high risk of being blocked by our system.

    If you have mass mailing/marketing needs, we strongly recommend the use of third-party services built for that purpose, such as Sendgrid and the likes. Those can easily be used alongside our service for your regular - human sent - emails (see here for some guidance).

    6. Sending from a third-party service without correct SPF and/or DKIM records

    Finally, if you send emails from a third-party service (Sendgrid, Wix, ...), you'll need to adapt your SPF record and add another DKIM record so that these services are recognized as legitimate senders of your domain name. Have a look here.

  • How do I know if my DNS is set correctly?

    If you've haven't verified your MX record yet, please visit https://postale.io/configure/yourdomain.com to verify your MX record first (replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name).

    Once your MX record is verified, login to the admin panel with an administrator address and click on the DNS diagnostic button in your domain page. This will show you everything you need to know about your domain DNS settings and what you need to fix.

    For alternative ways to check if your records are set properly, you may use third-party testing tools, such as dnschecker.org or the excellent mail-tester.com.

  • What's a DNS, and why do I need to configure it?

    The Domain Name System is a service acting as a directory for websites and other internet services.

    When you enter the name of a website in your web browser, say "google.com", your browser first asks to a DNS server where it can find that site (i.e. what's the IP address of the web server serving that particular site).

    The same thing goes for emails. When you send an email to someone, say to "maryline@poupoupidou.com", your mail client (Gmail, Outlook, ...) first asks a DNS server where to actually send the email (i.e. what's the mail server handling emails for "poupoupidou.com").

    Thus, any domain with email addresses needs a DNS configuration. That configuration takes the form of textual records on DNS servers hosted by your domain provider.

    If you're using postale.io for your domain emails, you need to set your domain DNS records so that mail clients everywhere in the world know that emails sent to your domain are handled by postale.io mail servers. Usually, only people knowing the domain provider (a.k.a registrar) credentials used to purchase a domain name have the ability to edit the DNS records of that domain.

    The main DNS record for emails is called an "MX" (Mail eXchange) record. For websites, it's called an "A" record. There are many more records for different purposes.

    To configure your DNS properly for postale.io, please visit our DNS configuration guide. To learn more about DNS records, check out our blog post "DNS Records Explained".

  • What's an MX record?

    It's the DNS record for mail servers. It tells what mail server(s) handle emails for a given domain name. That record is absolutely required to have working domain email addresses.

    To know the right MX record you need in order to use postale.io, please have a look at the DNS configuration guide. More information about MX records can also be found in our blog post "The MX Record Explained".

  • What's an SPF record?

    This is another DNS record used for emails. Quoting Wikipedia: "Sender Policy Framework is an email authentication method designed to detect forging sender addresses during the delivery of the email.". An SPF record basically tells which servers/services should be allowed to send emails on behalf of a domain name.

    If your domain has an SPF record and an unauthorized server tries to send an email from an email address using your domain name, that email will get a bad score from the recipient service anti-spam and will likely be either rejected or classified as SPAM. On the other hand if an email is sent from an authorized server, it gets a good score and a lesser chance of being seen as SPAM.

    To know the right SPF record you need to use for postale.io, please have a look at the DNS configuration guide. You can also learn more about SPF in our blog post "The SPF Record Explained".

  • What's a DKIM record?

    DKIM is another DNS record used for emails. Quoting Wikipedia again: "DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an email authentication method designed to detect forged sender addresses in emails [...].".

    A DKIM record allows the recipient mail service to verify the email did originate from where it claims it did and wasn't tampered with. DKIM does so by applying an encrypted digital signature to the email which can be verified by the recipient mail service. Similarly to the SPF record, it gives the emails you send a better score and a lesser chance of being seen as SPAM, and protects you further from impersonators.

    To know the right DKIM record you need to use for postale.io, please have a look at the DNS configuration guide. And if you'd like to better understand DKIM, have a look at our blog post "The DKIM Record Explained".

  • What's a DMARC record?

    Yet another DNS record to protect your domain email addresses from spoofing, DMARC allows you to apply a policy on unauthorized senders.

    SPF and DKIM provide information to the recipient mail service on the legitimacy of an email, but you have no control on what the service does to emails failing at these tests.

    DMARC solves this by allowing you to really instruct the recipient mail service what to do with suspicious emails. Not only that, but DMARC also makes SPF and DKIM stricter, preventing spoofing of what's called the "From" header field. Finally, DMARC provides daily reports of sending attempts made with your domain email addresses, and their outcome.

    We recommend the use of DMARC along with SPF and DKIM. The combination of those three mechanisms ensures the best possible protection against abusers, thus preserving your brand and improving your domain emails deliverability.

    To find out the correct DMARC record to start with, please see the DNS configuration guide. And to learn more about DMARC, check out our blog post "The DMARC Record Explained".

  • Are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records required?

    Technically, they're not. Only the MX record is required. But SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are strongly recommended, as without them the emails you send have a much higher chance of being considered as SPAM. If you set those records, it's very unlikely than any (legitimate) email you send land in the SPAM folders of your recipients. To know the correct records you need to use our services, please have a look at our DNS configuration guide.

  • My Sendgrid/Shopify/(any other third-party service) emails don't get delivered!

    If you're using a third-party email service like Sendgrid, Shopify, another service or your own server to send emails from @yourdomain.com email addresses, you'll need to include that into your SPF record.

    Simply add "include:some.third.party.server.com" right before "~all" in your SPF record. Like so:

    "v=spf1 mx include:some.third.party.server.com include:some.other.server.net ~all"

    The SPF record above includes the SPF records of some.third.party.server.com and some.other.server.net, which themselves allow some servers to send emails on behalf of your domain name (i.e. from @yourdomain.com email addresses, where yourdomain.com is your domain name). The "mx" part says the server specified in your MX record (which in your case is "mail.postale.io", our service) is also allowed.

    If you're using Sendgrid, your SPF record should look like this: "v=spf1 mx include:sendgrid.net ~all". Or see Sendgrid's documentation.

    If you're using Shopify, your SPF record should look like this: "v=spf1 mx include:shops.shopify.com ~all". Or see Shopify's documentation.

    You should also avoid using "reply-to" email addresses having a different domain name than the "from" email address. This tends to raise anti-spams red flags, especially if your SPF doesn't allow the sending server to send emails from your domain name. This could mean someone is not only trying to impersonate you/your company but is also trying to get replies (i.e. it looks like a phishing attempt).

  • I can't get my emails to work on my Gmail/Outlook/Thunderbird/Something mail client!

    Open your mail client, and find the menu/button to add an account. The interface will ask for your username (that's your full domain email address) and your password. Enter them.

    From there, most commonly used mail clients should be able to autoconfigure everything for you, thanks to our built-in autoconfiguration feature. If they don't autoconfigure, they'll ask you to provide some settings instead. Namely: SMTP server and port, POP or IMAP server and port, and SSL/TLS settings. All the settings you need to do that are provided on our mail client configuration guide.

  • Can I use my domain email address with Gmail?

    Sure! Open Gmail and click on Settings > Accounts and Import > Check mail from other accounts > Add a mail account. Enter your domain email address and follow the steps.

    When asked to enter your username, enter your full domain email address again (that's including the @yourdomainname.com part). Other settings you'll need are listed here. Please note that Gmail only supports POP.

    You'll find a detailed guide on our blog post "How to Use Your Domain Email Address on Free Gmail", and some information from Google here.

  • Can I have a profile picture with my domain email address?

    Yes, absolutely. However, please note that profile pictures actually depend on the email client used by your recipients.

    With Gmail for instance, only people using Gmail to open your emails will see your Google account profile picture (or people using another mail client also showing up the Google profile picture). If you'd like that to happen with your domain email address as well, you have two options:

    • Add your domain email address as an alternate email in your Google account (then your usual Google account profile picture will show up to Gmail users when you send from your domain email address).
    • Create a new Google account with your domain email address (select the "Use my current email address instead" option) and add a profile picture to it (then that profile picture will show up to Gmail users when you send from your domain email address).

  • How to add a signature to my domain email address?

    You can create a signature on the mail client you're using to send emails from your domain email address.

    For instance on the webmail you can do so from Settings > Identities > your email address > Signature. That signature will only be used when you send from the webmail though.

    If you send from another mail client, you'll need to create a signature there instead.

  • How to enable push notifications?

    Push notifications (a.k.a device synchronization) are supported via two distinct systems. Depending on how you add your domain email address to your mail client, you'll automatically be using one or the other:

    IMAP IDLE is used when you add your domain email address to your mail client the usual way, i.e. as an IMAP account, if it supports it. The extension was created back in 1997 and most clients today do support it.

    Exchange ActiveSync is used when you add your domain email address to your mail client as an Exchange account. EAS is also widely supported.

    We recommend using IMAP IDLE. It's more of an open standard, and support for EAS is shrinking overtime, with Microsoft itself having started retiring it. We'll likely stop supporting it as well in the future.

  • How to set a custom from/sender/display name for my domain email address?

    You may want to have some from/sender/display name for your domain email address, so that your recipients see that name when they get your emails. This can be set in your mail client, usually via an account setting called "name" or "display name".

    In the webmail for instance you can do that from Settings > Identities > your domain email > Display Name. Please note this will only apply to emails sent from the webmail. Similarly if you set a display name in a mail client (say Gmail or Apple Mail for instance), that name will only be used when you send emails from that client.

    There's just one exception to that rule. If you're using your domain email as an Exchange account (to enable push notifications), some apps don't offer a display name option. That's the case for the iOS Mail app for instance. As a fallback solution, and in that case only (an Exchange account without a custom display name), the webmail display name will be used instead, if you've set one.

  • How to enable autoconfiguration for mail clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, ...)?

    Most mail clients can autoconfigure themselves from only your domain email address and password. To benefit from this feature your domain DNS must have two CNAME records respectively named "autoconfig" and "autodiscover", both pointing to "mail.postale.io". See the DNS guide or the DNS diagnostic tool for details.

  • Autoconfiguration doesn't work?

    First you should know that not all mail clients support autoconfiguration. Some of the clients known to support it include: Thunderbird, Gmail, Spark, Outlook (though that one is not always reliable). If your mail client is supposed to support it, you need to configure your domain DNS to enable the feature.

    If it still doesn't work, please make sure there are no other DNS records interfering. Some domain providers prefill mail related records and that can break autoconfiguration. In particular:

    • Delete any other "autoconfig" or "autodiscover" CNAME records.
    • Delete any "imap", "smtp", "pop", or "pop3" CNAME records.
    • Delete any TXT records having their values start with "mailconf=".
    • Delete any _imaps._tcp SRV records.
    • Delete any _pop3s._tcp SRV records.
    • Delete any _submission._tcp SRV records.
    • Delete any _autodiscover._tcp SRV records.
    • Delete any _ldap._tcp SRV records.

    Or, if you're familiar with the records listed above, you can alternatively configure them to use our service. If not, better to remove them, as they are not required.

    Outlook autoconfiguration issues

    If you're still having issues making it work with Outlook, that may be due to "AutoDetect". It's a service introduced in recent years supposed to improve autoconfiguration, but which is currently not reliable, with known issues that only Microsoft can resolve on their end.

    A workaround is to disable the new account setup wizard that uses the AutoDetect service, reverting to the classic wizard with classic autodiscover. But this kind of defeats the purpose of autoconfiguration, which is to not have to configure anything in the first place.

  • How to use DAV calendars and address books?

    We support calendars and address books through the DAV protocol (CalDAV and CardDAV). What this means is that we provide DAV servers for your calendars and address books. However, we do not provide any DAV client, and it's unlikely we ever will (we focus on emails).

    You can use your DAV calendars and address books with any DAV client of your choice. Popular apps include iOS/macOS's Calendar, Thunderbird, OneCalendar, and the Vivaldi browser. Know another great DAV client? Feel free to share!

    Note that the webmail also offers an address book. At this time, that address book is entirely separate and unique to the webmail. It is not linked to your DAV address book.

  • How to register an account?

    Simply fill the two fields form at the top of our homepage. That will create a free trial account and your first domain address in one shot.

    You'll be asked to configure your domain MX record. Once that's done you'll be given access to the admin panel where you can easily manage addresses and/or upgrade your plan.

    For a full guide, have a look at our blog post "How to Create a Business Email Address for Free in 3 Easy Steps".

  • How to change the contact email associated with my account?

    At registration you provided us with an existing email address we can use to contact you if needed. For instance:

    • When you registered to confirm the account creation and provide guidance for the next steps.
    • When you request a password reset.
    • When we detect an issue with your DNS setup.
    • When your domain addresses don't work and we're helping you sorting out the issue.

    Since we need a way to reach you even when your domain email addresses don't work (e.g. bad DNS setup), the contact email should be a working external address (i.e. not one created on postale.io with your account).

    You can change that contact email address at any time from the Account page on the admin panel (visible to administrators only).

  • How/when can I upgrade/downgrade my plan?

    You can downgrade or upgrade your plan at any time, from the plan page in the admin panel. We'll automatically charge you prorated amounts for the time spent on each plan.

  • I just upgraded to a multi-domain plan. Can I group domains/addresses from other postale.io accounts to the upgraded one?

    Sure! Login to the admin panel and click on Domains > Add a domain. Enter the domain name you want to bring in and follow the ownership verification step.

    This will attach the domain with all of its mailboxes and aliases to the upgraded account, just as if you had created them from that account directly. You'll then be able to manage that domain and create more mailboxes and aliases for it with your upgraded capabilities.

  • How can I completely remove my account?

    You can fully remove your postale.io account (all domains, addresses, paid subscription, ...) from the Account page on the admin panel. That page is accessible by administrators only.

    Beware! This action is not reversible. Once your account is deleted, all of its data (including emails) is forever lost.

  • How to use white labeling (branding)?

    Branding, or white labeling, allows you to customize the acces and appearance of our service to display your brand or the brand of your users instead of the postale.io brand. Branding applies per domain, giving you the ability to set up different brandings for different organizations on a single account.

    This feature is often useful for companies and resellers (web agencies, freelancers...), who are interested in using postale.io as the email provider for their employees or customers.

    Login to the admin panel and go to Domains > yourdomain.com > Edit branding. There you'll find:

    • Instructions on how to set up access to our service from a custom domain name (mail.yourdomain.com).
    • Options to set things like brand logos, brand name, support URL, and so on.

    Your users can then access the branded webmail from https://mail.yourdomain.com, and use mail.yourdomain.com in their mail client settings in place of mail.postale.io.

  • Is it possible to white label the MX record?

    Yes. A single DNS CNAME record enables branded access to our service via mail.yourdomain.com, and that does include the MX record. Meaning that once enabled, you can use mail.yourdomain.com as MX record and in other DNS records in place of mail.postale.io.

    If you're surprised by this, perhaps you've read that MX records can't point to CNAME records. That's a common misconception, due to the fact that old RFCs used to disallow that behavior. Specifically, people tend to refer to RFC 2181 from 1997, which states:

    The domain name used as the value of a NS resource record, or part of the value of a MX resource record must not be an alias.

    Or they may cite an older RFC that 2181 updated, like 1123 from 1989, or 821 from 1982.

    These RFCs are all outdated. RFC 5321 from 2008 explicitely obsoletes 2821 and allows pointing to CNAME records in MX records, as long as the CNAME resolves to an actual A, AAAA, or MX record:

    Only resolvable, fully-qualified domain names (FQDNs) are permitted when domain names are used in SMTP. In other words, names that can be resolved to MX RRs or address (i.e., A or AAAA) RRs (as discussed in Section 5) are permitted, as are CNAME RRs whose targets can be resolved, in turn, to MX or address RRs.
    [...]
    The lookup first attempts to locate an MX record associated with the name. If a CNAME record is found, the resulting name is processed as if it were the initial name.
  • What happened to the free plan?

    It got turned into the $1 Base plan (with a 30 days free trial), for new registrations only.

    Why? Well our free plan got very popular and it started to grow a little too fast for us to keep offering it while maintaining quality of service. Nothing is set in stone though and depending on how our capabilities evolve we may or may not offer another free plan in the future.

    If you registered to a free plan when it was offered, no worries, it stays free and nothing changes for you!

  • Can I resell email addresses?

    Sure! You are absolutely free to resell domain email addresses however you like.

    In fact, a significant part of our user base is made of web agencies and other IT professionals who use postale.io for their customers' domain addresses. If you're a reseller, you may be particularly interested in the following features:

    • The ability to create "domain admins": users allowed to act on addresses of their domain only (rather than on your whole account and plan).
    • The ability to limit the number of mailboxes and aliases on each domain independently.
    • The ability to limit the storage per mailbox on each domain independently. Requires Premium Plus.
    • The ability to allocate different storage sizes to different mailboxes. Requires Premium Plus.
    • White labeling, allowing you to fully hide postale.io under your own brand, or the brand of your customer. Requires Premium Plus.
    • The ability to access the webmail, admin panel, and mail serveurs from a custom domain, yours or the ones of your customers (part of the white labeling feature). Requires Premium Plus.
    • Access to the API, to programatically create and manage your domain addresses. Requires Premium Plus.
    • Access to detailed logs on each email transaction. Requires Premium Plus.
    • Access to logs on each user authentication. Requires Premium Plus.

  • Where can I create/edit/delete email addresses for my domain?

    On your admin panel. Only if you are an administrator will you be able to act on other email addresses.

  • How to set a catch-all address for my domain?

    Connect to your admin panel with an administrator address. Click on your domain then on 'Edit settings', check 'Catch-all' and choose a target address.

  • How to add more domains to my account?

    Currently only paid plans allow multiple domains in a single account. If you have a paid plan, login to the admin panel and click on Domains > Add a domain.

  • I can't delete one of my domains, why?

    You can delete a domain from its page on the admin panel, but only when you're logged in with a full admin address of a domain other than the one you want to delete.

    If you don't see the delete option, you probably don't satisfy that requirement. It's there to ensure your account always has at least one full admin address, since deleting a domain also deletes all of its addresses.

  • Where can I change email settings such as automatic replies and redirections?

    On the webmail, in Settings > Filters, or on your admin panel, see the 'Filters' section on the email address settings page.

  • Can I make custom rules/filters on emails I receive (to filter SPAM for instance)?

    Sure! You can easily make rules from the webmail, in Settings > Filters.

    For instance you could make a rule to automatically remove all emails containing a particular text, or having a particular subject, or sent from a particular email address. Or automatically move them in say the Trash folder.

    That filtering interface in the webmail is very intuitive to use and requires no knowledge. When you make a filter with it, behind the scene it writes in the Sieve script of your email address.

    If you need more advanced rules, you can also direclty write in the Sieve script yourself. That's done from the admin panel, in the email address settings page, click on the 'Custom filter' button within the 'Filters' section. Since both the webmail and the admin panel write in the same Sieve script, you can interchangeably use both ways to make rules.

  • How long do emails stay in the Trash and Junk folders?

    30 days! All emails in the Junk and Trash folders older than 30 days are automatically deleted. This is a common practice, helping you to keep your storage usage under control.

  • Do you support automatic aliases such as name+tag@domain.com (a.k.a sub-addressing)?

    Yes! We support sub-addressing with the "+" (plus) character.

    For instance if you created an email address john@wayne.com, any email sent to an address of the form john+tag@wayne.com will be received by john@wayne.com as well, with tag being any word you like. You can even use multiple tags, like john+west+saloon@wayne.com.

  • How to export or import emails?

    You can easily import or export emails from the webmail. To export emails, select the emails and click on More > Download. Emails can be exported in the Eml, Maildir, or Mbox format.

    To instead import emails, click on More > Import. Supported formats for imports are Eml, Mime, and Mbox. Multiple files can be compressed into zip archives. Each file you upload must be under 100 MB, but you can upload multiple files at once (you can split a large archive into smaller ones).

    This is with our webmail, but most mail clients offer similar import/export features and can be used as well.

  • How to migrate emails from another service?

    Manual migration

    One manual way to migrate a mailbox is to use emails exports/imports. You can use a mail client like Thunderbird to export emails from the source service into an archive. Many mail services also offer built in export features in their web interfaces.

    You can then re-import the archive into your mailbox on postale.io.

    Automated migration with imapsync

    Another, more automated way, is to use a migration tool. We recommend imapsync. It's free, open-source, widely used, and pretty straightforward. For instance, to migrate an address abc@alphabet.com with password mYpAsSwOrD from Zoho to postale.io, first recreate the mailbox on our service, and then run:

    imapsync --host1 imap.zoho.com --user1 abc@alphabet.com --password1 mYpAsSwOrD --host2 mail.postale.io --user2 abc@alphabet.com --password2 mYpAsSwOrD

    If you're not familiar with the command line or don't feel like installing the software, imapsync also provides an online interface. It's very easy to use and free for migrations under 3 GB. If you use that online version, we recommend you change the mailbox password afterward, for extra safety.

    By default imapsync will attempt to fully replicate all folders and emails. If you need finer control, the command line tool has many options, like copy only some folders or emails based on various criteria (size, age, ...).

    After impasync has finished, you may need to close and reopen your mail client or refresh your webmail page in order to see all the changes, especially if new folders were created on the destination mailbox.

    Check out our blog post "3 Easy Ways to Migrate Business Email Addresses Between Services" for more information.

  • How do I know if an email I sent has been successfully delivered to the recipient?

    If your email delivery fails for some reason, you'll get an error email back, sent from MAILER-DAEMON@mail.postale.io. That email states that the delivery failed and for what reason (e.g. the recipient address doesn't exist, its mailbox is full, ...).

    In most cases the failure reason is actually provided by the recipient mail service, and our service simply informs you about it. In such cases we are not responsible for the pertinence or accuracy of the given error.

    In rare cases, the recipient's mail service may not provide any errors, although the email was actually rejected. This is usually because the recipient's mail service considered the email to be SPAM that was not worth delivering, but it does not want to inform the sender. This is a choice of the recipient's email service, over which no one but that service - including us - has any control.

  • How to get an email read/return receipt?

    Sometimes you want to get notified whenever you recipient has opened or read your email. This is often called "return receipt", "read receipt", or "email tracking". There are two main ways of achieving it:

    • The native but unreliable "Return receipt" feature of the mail (SMTP) protocol.
    • The more reliable but more invasive tracking pixel, usually requiring the use of a third-party service.

    The native return receipt

    This is a feature of the SMTP protocol, the protocol used to transmit emails. You can use that feature if both your mail client and the one of your recipient support it. For instance on the webmail, before sending your email, enable the "Return receipt" option on the right options panel. Similar options exist on other mail clients.

    When an email was sent with return receipt enabled, and if the recipient mail client supports that feature, when said recipient opens the email, his/her mail client informs him/her that the sender asks for a return receipt.

    The recipient can then choose to either accept to send the receipt, or ignore/refuse it. If the recipient accepts, the sender gets an email back stating that the email was opened by the recipient. If the recipient refuses, well, nothing happens.

    As you can see this is not very reliable:

    • Your recipient mail client may not support that feature.
    • Your recipient may choose to not send the receipt back.
    • Gmail doesn't support read receipts on external accounts because it only supports POP for such accounts and POP isn't compatible with read receipts (detailed here).

    On the other hand, this approach is respectful of the recipient's privacy.

    The tracking pixel

    A more powerful way is to instead rely on an invisible 1x1 pixel included in emails you send. That pixel is usually provided by a third-party service, and contains a bit of code. Whenever an email containing it is opened, the associated service collects information and sends a receipt email to the sender.

    This technique is more invasive. While useful for marketing campaigns, we discourage its use in most cases.

    At postale.io we do not provide tracking pixels, mainly for privacy reasons. There are however good services out there providing them. A popular one is pastepixel.com.

  • I can't delete an email address, why?

    You can delete an address from the address page on the admin panel, but only under the following conditions:

    • You're logged in with a full admin address or a domain admin address of the same domain.
    • The address you want to delete is not the one you're currently logged in with.
    • The address you want to delete is not the only full admin address of the account.

    If you don't see the delete option, you probably don't satisfy these requirements. They're here to ensure your account always has at least one full admin address.

    If instead you'd like to delete your entire account (i.e. all domains and addresses), please have a look here.

  • What are the credentials to connect to the admin panel?

    Your username is always your domain email address. For your password:

    • If you are the first user registered on postale.io for your domain, you received your password by email at the contact email address you've given us during registration. If you didn't receive the email, or if you've mistyped your contact email address, please contact us.
    • If you are not the first user registered on postale.io for your domain, your password has been set by the administrator who created your address. Please contact him/her to get your password.

    Note that you can always change your password from your admin panel.

  • What are the credentials to connect to the webmail?

    Same answer as for the admin panel. The credentials for the webmail and the admin panel are always the same.

  • Help, I forgot my password!

    If you're a regular (i.e. non admin) user please contact your administrator, as they can reset your password from their admin panel. By default the first user registered on postale.io for a given domain is an administrator. However other admins can be added later by any administrator.

    If you are actually the first administrator you can get a password reset link from the forgot password page. Alternatively you can contact us.

  • I know my password but it's not working anyway!

    If you're absolutely certain you're using the right credentials to login but it's not working anyway, it means an administrator has changed your password. Please contact an administrator.

  • Where can I change my password?

    On your admin panel, in the 'My address' page if you're an admin, or in the 'Password' page otherwise. Credentials are the same as for the webmail.

  • How come a non administrator can access the admin panel?

    If you're not an administrator, you're admin panel will only allow you to modify settings related to your own address: change your password, set an out of office automatic reply, etc.

    A non administrator does not have access to any action on other addresses of the domain or on the domain settings. Only administrators have such options.

  • How to enable two-factor authentication (2FA)?

    Want to enable 2FA on an address? Easy! Login to the admin panel, open the address page, and click on the 'Edit 2FA' button.

    There you can choose between Google Authenticator or email as the second authentication method. Enter the verification code, and "voilĂ ", 2FA is enabled on the address. You can change the method or disable 2FA at any time by going back to that 2FA settings page.

    Please note that 2FA only applies to web interfaces (webmail and admin panel), not to mail clients.

  • What payment methods do you support?

    We currently support the following payment methods:

    • Credit/debit/prepaid cards (always available).
    • PayPal (restricted availability).
    • Google Pay (restricted availability).
    • Apple Pay (restricted availability).
    • Link.

    The availability of methods other than cards depend on your location and device. See below for more information.

  • How to pay with this or that payment method?

    You can choose a payment method when subscribing to a paid plan for the first time, or when updating your payment method if you subscribed already.

    However, please note that some payment methods may not be available to you, depending on your location and device. Using a card is the only method that is always available.

    1. Credit/debit/prepaid cards

    This method is always available.

    2. PayPal

    This method is not always available. If the option doesn't show up, it's not available to you.

    There is often a workaround though: if you see the Google Pay or Apple Pay option and have a PayPal card in your Google/Apple Pay account, select Google/Apple Pay as payment method and then select the PayPal card when Google/Apple asks you to choose a payment method.

    3. Google Pay

    This method is not always available. If the option doesn't show up, it's not available to you.

    It can also be used to pay with PayPal indirectly (see 2. PayPal above).

    4. Apple Pay

    This method is not always available. If the option doesn't show up, it's not available to you.

    It can also be used to pay with PayPal indirectly (see 2. PayPal above).

    5. Link

    This method is not always available. If the option doesn't show up, it's not available to you.

  • Are payments safe?

    Yes.

    Safely handling payments is a whole field we don't master and don't want to tackle. Instead, we're delegating that part to Stripe, one of the major and most trusted payments processing platforms out there.

    Being widely used by small and large companies across the world, Stripe maintains high levels of safety measures, both legal and technical.

    On the legal side, some notable feats are Stripe having a PCI Service Provider Level 1 Certification (the highest level of certification in the payments industry), Money Transmitter licenses, and being FDIC insured. On the technical side, Stripe forces HTTPS on all communications via HSTS, and encrypts sensitive data at rest with an AES-256 algorithm, amongst many other security measures.

    Find out more from Stripe's security documentation.

  • Do you store payment method/credit card information?

    No.

    This may come as a surprise if you have subscribed to a paid plan, as you are billed automatically every month, and you may have seen your credit card or other payment method being preset in the billing tab of your plan page.

    We delegate payments processing to Stripe, a third-party service specifically designed for that purpose. When you enter your payment details, you are actually providing them to Stripe, not to us. They are the ones processing your payment method on our behalf.

    We never have access to your payment data ourselves, and never will. Stripe simply provides us with an arbitrary ID identifying your payment method on their platform, along with some basic information to help you recognize it (last four digits of credit card, PayPal email address, ...). That's what we display on the billing tab.

    Stripe has to store your payment method details in order to automatically charge it for your subscription renewals. As a payment platform, Stripes takes safety of such data very seriously, with for instance AES-256 encryption at rest. Find out more about Stripe's security here.

    When you delete your postale.io account, your Stripe data is also deleted, including any payment method information.

  • How to change the payment method used to pay my plan?

    Go to the billing tab of your plan page, and click on the Edit button of the "Payment method" section. The new payment method you provide will be used for all future invoices.

  • How to change the billing information shown on my invoices?

    You can change some of the billing information that appears on your invoices:

    • Email (invoices are sent to that address).
    • Name (e.g. first and last names, company name, ...).
    • Address.
    • Tax ID (e.g. VAT number, EIN number, ...).

    To set these, go to the billing tab of your plan page, and click on the Edit button under the Billing information section.

    Changes apply to all past and future invoices, with the exception of the tax ID which applies only to future invoices. By default, only the billing email address is set (to the one from which you first upgraded).

  • When am I billed?

    When you subscribe to a paid plan for the first time, you are instantly billed for the first month. You are then billed every month on the same day for the subscription renewal. For instance if you subscribe on February 15, you'll be billed on the 15th every month.

    If you downgrade back to the free trial before the end of a billing period, you are not refunded for the remaining part of the month. However a subsequent re-upgrade to the same plan won't trigger any additional charge, as you have already paid for the month. A re-upgrade to another plan will also take into account the amount already paid.

  • How to stop being billed?

    Either downgrade back to the free trial, or delete your postale.io account.

  • How am I billed after a plan downgrade or upgrade?

    Your next renewal invoice will be updated to the prorata of the time spent on each plan.

    For instance, let's say you subscribed to Premium at $5/month on March 1st, and you upgrade to Premium Plus Small at $10/month on March 15. On March 1st you were billed $5. Your next invoice (on April 1st) will look something like this:

    • 50% of paid but unused time spent on Premium in March (-$2.5).
    • 50% of unpaid but used time spent on Premium Plus Small in March (+$5).
    • +$10 for the coming month of April under Premium Plus Small.
    • Totaling in a charge of $12.5.
    You'll have paid $17.5 for both March and April, with 1.5 months on Premium Plus Small ($15) and 0.5 months on Premium ($2.5).

    Similarly, when you downgrade to a lower cost plan any overpaid amount is considered as credit and will be deduced from your next invoice(s).

  • What happens if a renewal payment fails or if I stop paying?

    Every month your payment method is automatically charged for your plan renewal. At some point a payment may fail for any reason (insufficient funds, card is expired, ...).

    If that happens you'll be notified of the failure via email. The payment will be retried automatically a few times over several weeks, during which your plan stays active as usual, giving you time to take corrective action (manually pay the invoice or change your payment method).

    After all retries have failed, your plan will be deactivated. This means you won't be able to send or receive emails with your domain addresses anymore. You'll still be able to access your mailboxes and the emails already in it.

    You can easily reactivate a deactivated plan at any time (or upgrade/downgrade to another plan) from the plan page. That will resume your subscription, and instantly bring your email capabilities back. Please note that the period of time during which your plan was past due but active is still due, and it will be charged when you subscribe again.

  • Where to find my invoices?

    You can find your invoices in the billing tab of your plan page.

  • How to set the email address invoices are sent to?

    While your invoices are always available on your plan page, they are also sent to your billing email address.

    That's the email address in your billing information, which you can change however you like. By default, it is set to the email address from which you first upgraded.

  • How to manually pay an invoice?

    Only invoices with status "open" or "uncollectible" can be paid. On your invoices list, simply click on the invoice you wish to pay. It will open a page where you can provide payment details to pay the invoice.

    Manually paying an invoice is useful if a renewal payment failed and you want to make sure the invoice is paid before your plan gets deactivated.

  • Do your prices include VAT?

    Our company being registered in France, only French customers are subject to VAT.

    • If you're not in France, VAT is not applicable and you pay nothing more than the price we advertise.
    • If you're in France, VAT is applicable and you pay the price we advertise plus France's VAT rate (20%). If you're a French business you can of course deduct it from your taxes later on.