# Setting Up Emails

> How to setup emails in your Makerkit SaaS application

*Canonical: https://makerkit.dev/docs/next-fire/how-to/setup/set-up-emails*

---

Sending emails is a critical part of your SaaS application. Makerkit uses emails to send invites to your users only, but it's likely you'll want to send other emails to your users.

To set up emails in your Makerkit application, you should add the following environment variables to your project, using a secure environment:

```bash
EMAIL_HOST=
EMAIL_PORT=587
EMAIL_USER=
EMAIL_PASSWORD=
EMAIL_SENDER='MakerKit Team <info@makerkit.dev>'
```

Makerkit will use these values to send emails on your behalf using the node library `nodemailer`.

NB: this does not refer to emails sent by Firebase.

### Where do I get these values?

These values are normally provided by your service provider.

### Which services are supported?

Any service that supports SMTP should work. We recommend using [Resend](https://resend.com/).

### How do I test emails locally?

Makerkit uses [InBucket](https://inbucket.org) - a platform to testing emails.

InBucket saves time during development since we can test
our emails without setting up a real SMTP service - and works locally and
offline.

To run the InBucket platform, **we need Docker running on our machine**.

To start the InBucket service, run the following command:

```
npm run inbucket:start
```

InBucket will now be running at [localhost:9000](http://localhost:9000). When we send an email using the
`sendEmail` function in the kit, we can visualize it using the InBucket UI.

InBucket is used by default during development. Instead, for production
usage, you will need to set up a real SMTP service.

#### Ethereal

In previous versions Makerkit used Ethereal. If you are running an older version, please refer to the below.

Makerkit used Ethereal to allow you testing your emails without using a real
email account. To use Ethereal, you should add the following environment variables to your project, using a secure environment:

```bash
ETHEREAL_EMAIL=
ETHEREAL_PASSWORD=
```

If not set, Makerkit will automatically create an account for you on-the-fly and print the credentials in the console. You can then use these credentials to log in to Ethereal and see your emails.