Email Options

5 minute read

Enable Email features?

Enable the following email-sending features:
Report Bad Post
‘Contact Us’ Link
New Post Notifications to Members

  • Variable Name: enableemail
  • Data Type: boolean
  • Default Value: 1

Email Flood Check

Specify in seconds how much time must elapse before a user may send consecutive emails.

Set to 0 to disable this flood check. Admins are always exempt from this floodcheck.

  • Variable Name: emailfloodtime
  • Data Type: integer
  • Default Value: 60

Use Cron Based Sending

If enabled, vBulletin will send queued e-mails in batches using the scheduled task. You must set a sensible batch value and make sure queuing is enabled.

  • Variable Name: mailqueue
  • Data Type: boolean
  • Default Value: 1

E-Mail Send Delay

The number of seconds delay before sending each e-mail. Use with caution. Normally you would set this only if you are hitting limits for your hosting account. Do not adjust this unless you understand the consequences.

  • Variable Name: mail_delay
  • Data Type: integer
  • Default Value: 0

Use Mailqueue System

When enabled, subscription emails generated by your site will be processed in batches to lessen the load on your server. Account activation, lost passwords and other vital emails are sent instantly regardless of this setting. If your site has low traffic, subscription emails may be delayed.

If you have a large site, you may wish to enable locking. This prevents a rare situation where the same email is sent multiple times.

  • Variable Name: usemailqueue
  • Data Type: number
  • Default Value: 1

Moderator new post emails skip queue

Emails sent to moderators when new posts are made will be sent immediately instead of being added to the queue. This will ensure prompt notification, but it can cause a noticeable delay when saving the post.

This is only applicable when the emails are queued.

  • Variable Name: skip_queue_for_new_post_emails
  • Data Type: boolean
  • Default Value: 1

Number of Emails to Send Per Batch

vBulletin includes a mail queuing system to prevent bottlenecks when sending lots of email. Use this option to specify how many emails will be sent per batch.

  • Variable Name: emailsendnum
  • Data Type: integer
  • Default Value: 10

Bounce Email Address

The email address where bounce messages will be directed. If this field is blank, the Webmaster Email address will be used.

This email is used when using an SMTP server, or when the ‘Enable -f Parameter’ email for sendmail is switched on.

  • Variable Name: bounceemail
  • Data Type: free
  • Default Value:

Enable ‘-f’ Parameter

Some sendmail servers may require the ‘-f’ parameter to be sent with email calls from PHP. If you are having problems with users not receiving email, try enabling this option. In all likelihood, your problem will not be caused by this setting.

  • Variable Name: needfromemail
  • Data Type: boolean
  • Default Value:

Use Bulk Header?

Mail servers using Exchange will send auto responders unless you mark your email as bulk mail. While there is no documented case of emails being marked as spam directly due to this header, there is no guarantee what other mail servers will do with this header.

Set this option to ‘yes’ if you are getting tired of all the auto responders in your webmaster email from Exchange servers.

  • Variable Name: usebulkheader
  • Data Type: boolean
  • Default Value: 0

Encode as UTF-8

If this is set to ‘Yes’ then emails will be reencoded to UTF-8 before sending, if possible.

  • Variable Name: utf8encode
  • Data Type: boolean
  • Default Value: 0

SMTP Email

Set this option to yes to use an SMTP server rather than the internal PHP mail() function.

  • Variable Name: use_smtp
  • Data Type: boolean
  • Default Value:

SMTP Host

If you’ve enabled SMTP mail, please specify the host here. You may find that specifying an IP Address rather than a domain name, results in better performance. Example: smtp.gmail.com

  • Variable Name: smtp_host
  • Data Type: free
  • Default Value:

SMTP Port

If you’ve enabled SMTP mail, please specify the port here.

  • Variable Name: smtp_port
  • Data Type: integer
  • Default Value: 25

SMTP Username

If you’ve enabled SMTP mail and your server requires authentication, please specify your username here.

  • Variable Name: smtp_user
  • Data Type: free
  • Default Value:

SMTP Password

If you’ve enabled SMTP mail and your server requires authentication, please specify your password here.

  • Variable Name: smtp_pass
  • Data Type: free
  • Default Value:

SMTP Secure Connection

If you’ve enabled SMTP mail and your server requires a TLS connection, please set this to yes. This requires OpenSSL support to be compiled into PHP.

  • Variable Name: smtp_tls
  • Data Type: free
  • Default Value: none

Extra Headers

If you want to include extra smtp header information, add it here.

  • Variable Name: extra_smtp_headers
  • Data Type: free
  • Default Value:

Email users a message on their birthday

If enabled, this will send the user an email on their birthday except for certain groups (banned users, users awaiting activation or moderation, or user groups with birthday displays disabled).



Users can also disable the birthday email or all admin emails in their user settings.

  • Variable Name: enablebirthdayemails
  • Data Type: boolean
  • Default Value: 1

Activity period for Birthday Emails

Users whose last visit is more than this many days will not receive a birthday email. This prevents people who signed up a long while ago and forgotten from getting emails they consider spam.

Enter a value of 0 if you want to send email to all users regardless of activity.

  • Variable Name: birthdayemaillookback
  • Data Type: number
  • Default Value: 365
updated: 2021-10-06 03:12pm | Version: 5.6.5 Alpha 11