Email Templates

SFTPGo sends emails for specific system events such as password resets, password expiration notifications, and one-time access codes for shares. You can customize the subject and HTML body of these emails from the Email Templates section in the WebAdmin global configuration page.

When a custom template is configured in the database, it overrides the built-in default template. If left empty, the default template is used. Changes are applied across all instances in a cluster setup without requiring a service restart.

Available Templates

Password Reset

Sent when a user or admin requests a password reset via the "Forgot Password" flow.

Available placeholders:

Placeholder	Description
`{{.Username}}`	The username of the account requesting the reset
`{{.Code}}`	The verification code (valid for 10 minutes)

Password Expiration

Sent as a notification when a user's password is about to expire or has already expired. Triggered by the password expiration check scheduled event action.

Available placeholders:

Placeholder	Description
`{{.Username}}`	The username of the account
`{{.Days}}`	Number of days until password expiration. `0` or negative means the password has already expired

One-Time Access Code

Sent when a one-time access code is required, for example when accessing a share that requires email authentication.

Available placeholders:

Placeholder	Description
`{{.Code}}`	The one-time access code
`{{.Email}}`	The email address of the recipient (when available)
`{{.ShareName}}`	The name of the share (when available)
`{{.ShareUsername}}`	The username of the share owner (when available)
`{{.ShareDesc}}`	The description of the share (when available)

Not all placeholders are always populated. The {{.Code}} placeholder is always available. The share-specific placeholders ({{.Email}}, {{.ShareName}}, etc.) are populated only when the email is sent for a share access request.

Template Syntax

Templates use Go template syntax. The most common usage is inserting placeholder values:

<p>Your verification code is: <strong>{{.Code}}</strong></p>

You can also use conditional logic:

{{if le .Days 0}}
<p>Your password has expired.</p>
{{else}}
<p>Your password expires in {{.Days}} days.</p>
{{end}}

Email Subjects

Each template also has a configurable Subject field. Subjects support the same placeholder syntax as the body — you can use Go template variables to create dynamic subjects. For example:

Reset code for {{.Username}}

If the subject is left empty, the default subject is used. Subjects configured in the UI take precedence over the SFTPGO_HOOK__*_EMAIL_SUBJECT environment variables. Note that environment variable subjects do not support placeholders.

Template	Default Subject	Environment Variable (fallback)
Password Reset	`Email Verification Code for {{.Username}}`	`SFTPGO_HOOK__PASSWORD_FORGOT_EMAIL_SUBJECT`
Password Expiration	`SFTPGo password expiration notification`	`SFTPGO_HOOK__PASSWORD_EXPIRATION_EMAIL_SUBJECT`
One-Time Access Code	`One-time access code`	`SFTPGO_HOOK__SHARE_CODE_EMAIL_SUBJECT`

HTML Editor

The WebAdmin UI provides a visual HTML editor for composing email templates. The editor supports:

Rich text formatting (bold, italic, small text, text colors from a fixed palette, lists, etc.)
Image embedding via Base64 or external links
Table creation and editing

From the text, Alt+F10 moves the keyboard focus to the menu of the selected text, link, image or table, where the table row and column operations are, or to the formatting toolbar when no menu is shown. Pressed again in a menu, it moves to the formatting toolbar. Escape returns to the text.

The editor keeps the styles it produces: alignment, palette colors and small text. A template body written by hand, for example through the REST API, keeps any other inline style until it is opened and saved in the editor, which removes them.

Backward Compatibility

If no custom templates are configured in the database, SFTPGo uses the built-in default templates from the templates/email directory. The smtp.templates_path configuration option for overriding templates on disk continues to work as a fallback.

The precedence order is:

Custom template from database (configured via WebAdmin)
Template from disk (via smtp.templates_path configuration)
Built-in default template