Supabase self-hosted: Email provider still “disabled” in dashboard despite working SMTP
08:28 03 Mar 2026

I’m self-hosting Supabase (v2.186) using Docker Compose on my server and running into an issue with email authentication.

  • Emails are working correctly (signup, recovery, magic links).

  • I’m using Gmail SMTP with an app password.

  • Inside the supabase-auth container, the variable GOTRUE_EXTERNAL_EMAIL_ENABLED=true is set.

  • My .env also includes GOTRUE_MAILER_EXTERNAL_HOSTS and GOTRUE_URI_ALLOW_LIST configured for my domains.

Problem:
In the Supabase dashboard, the email provider is still showing as “disabled”.

What I’ve tried:

  1. Full restart of containers (auth + dashboard)

  2. Verified the environment variables inside the container (docker exec -it supabase-auth env | grep GOTRUE)

  3. Emails are sending correctly, so SMTP works fine

Question:
Is it normal for the dashboard to show the email provider as “disabled” even though GOTRUE_EXTERNAL_EMAIL_ENABLED is true and emails are working?
Is there an additional variable or step required to have the dashboard display the email provider as enabled in a self-hosted Supabase setup?

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

supabase self-hosting