# Email Notifications

You can send email notifications to your users from anywhere in your application.

Emails use a JSON template for content - no need to wrestle with HTML tables. The JSON is then injected into an email template located in the `/emails` directory.

```javascript
await mail.send({

 to: 'name@email.com,
 template: 'welcome',
 content: {
  
  name: 'John',
  plan: 'startup',
  price: '$49'
  
 }
});
```

You can also use a custom HTML template by passing the file name as a `custom` value.

## Sending Notifications to Yourself

If you wish to send a notification to yourself, you can use the mail utility endpoint:

```javascript
POST /api/utility/mail

// params 
{
  name: 'from-name',
  email: 'from-email-address',
  message: 'message body'
}
```

This will send an email to the address stored in `SUPPORT_EMAIL` [environment variable](https://docs.usegravity.app/gravity-server/environment-variables). You can see an example of this in the /help view. 

## Using Other Mail Providers

Gravity uses [nodemailer](https://nodemailer.com/) with the default mail service set to [Mailgun](httsp://mailgun.com). 

If you wish to use another mail provider, you can simply install the nodemailer transport package for your chosen service and update the `mail.send` method in `helper/mail`**.**

1. Find and install the transport package from [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/)
2. Change the require import on line 7 of **helper/mail** to import your package
3. Update the authentication object in line 25 of **helper/mail** to match your service's requirements

```javascript
const mailgun = require('nodemailer-mailgun-transport'); // require transport

exports.send = async function(data){

  // transport auth
  const transport = nodemailer.createTransport(mailgun({
    host: settings.host,
    auth: {
    api_key: process.env.MAILGUN_API_KEY,
    domain: settings.domain
  }))
}
```

A f[ull list of well-known services is available here.](https://nodemailer.com/smtp/well-known/)

## Using Custom Email Templates

Gravity includes a clean, responsive email template, but you can also add your own templates to cover a wider variety of use cases.

{% hint style="info" %}
I recommend using [htmlemail.io](https://htmlemail.io) for premium templates. **Gravity customers get 20% OFF** – you’ll receive a coupon via email after you purchase.
{% endhint %}

For full instructions on how to implement a custom template, [please follow the instructions in this blog post](https://usegravity.app/blog/how-to-use-custom-email-templates-with-gravity).

{% hint style="info" %}
If you're migrating from a previous version of Gravity, please run the seeds below to populate the database with the email content.
{% endhint %}

```javascript
knex seed:run // sql
node seed/mongo // mongodb
```

## Notification Preferences

Users can't toggle which email notifications they would like to receive in the *notifications* section of their account.

These settings are stored in the database notifications table. By default, the following preferences are  included for you:

* new\_signin
* plan\_updated
* card\_updated
* invite\_accepted

If you'd like to add more options you, add them to the `notifications` object in [config](https://docs.usegravity.app/gravity-server/config). This way, all new users will automatically have the these preferences added to the database.