SMTP Config

Working config of SMTP with Zoho mail

I've just implemented Akaunting on Prem, and everything worked smoothly except SMTP config where I couldn't find any useful discussions/tutorials to explain the process/issues. I've now got it working and I'm sharing my findings to hopefully save someone else this painful process.

The version this was installed on is V 3.1.1.7

First of all your chosen mail provider needs to support either SSL or TLS SMTP conections, as Akaunting doesn't appear to support OAUTH2. I use Zoho successfully to send/receive emails for other websites so this was my choice.

In Akaunting, go settings->email service to set up the email:

Protocol = SMTP
SMTP HOST = smtppro.zoho.eu
SMTP PORT = 465
SMTP USERNAME = [email protected] (i.e. the email account you set up)
SMTP PASSWORD = your_password
SMTP SECURITY = ssl

Save these values, restart the webserver (or reboot) and test.

The next problem is there is no way to send a test email. Either use the forgotten password link (for an existing account) or create an invoice and try to mail it to a customer (i.e. yourself).

At this stage nothing worked for me. No email was received and no error message was given.

After some digging...

The values for the SMTP config are stored in the .env file, but some values were missing and the password was wrong. Manually corrrect this:

MAIL_MAILER="smtp"
MAIL_HOST="smtppro.zoho.eu"
MAIL_PORT="465"
MAIL_USERNAME="[email protected]"
MAIL_PASSWORD="yourpassword"
MAIL_ENCRYPTION="ssl"
MAIL_FROM_NAME="Your name" (who the end user will see who the email is from)
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS="[email protected]"

In my install, the password the password Akaunting wrote to the .env was wrong and MAIL_FROM_NAME & MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS were missing. Put all values between " ".

Also, ensure that the email address you have setup in the .env file matches the email address you have setup as your company email settings->company: email (my initial config was different and Zoho rejected it).

After this extra config, the mail works.

Don't chnage the SMTP settings via the webpage as it will likely break the setup.

I hope this helps someone out.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I'm also self-hosting using Coolify (an open-source alternative to Heroku), and I encountered exactly the same issues when deploying Akaunting. I’ve tried everything you mentioned, but unfortunately none of them worked for me either. I also attempted to configure it using Gmail SMTP, but still no success.

Thanks again!