Gitea email and the Microsoft 365 Basic auth shutdown
Gitea is a self-hosted Git service, typically a few users on one machine. It sends:
- registration and account-activation mail
- password resets
- notifications on issues and pull requests people are watching
None of that is noisy, and none of it is noticed when it stops. Mail that is never sent leaves no error on any screen anybody looks at.
What changes at the end of December 2026
If these messages go out through Microsoft 365 with a username and a password, Exchange Online stops accepting that by default. Not throttles — refuses. An administrator can switch it back on, which buys time rather than solving it: Microsoft announces the final removal date in the second half of 2027, and tenants created after December 2026 do not get the option at all.
Which of the four you are looking at is decided by the exact string the server sends back.
Why this application fits a free relay
A private instance with a handful of accounts sends a trickle. Registration and resets are what actually matter: without them a locked-out user stays locked out.
That is the honest test, and it is worth applying before the settings: mail leaves from a generated @msgwing.com address rather than your own domain, and the cap is 200 messages a day. For an invoice or a shop receipt that is disqualifying. For Gitea it usually is not.
Settings
The [mailer] section of app.ini.
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
ENABLED | true |
PROTOCOL | smtp+starttls |
SMTP_ADDR | mx.msgwing.com |
SMTP_PORT | 587 |
USER | your @msgwing.com login |
PASSWD | your @msgwing.com password |
FROM | your @msgwing.com login |
Register at msgwing.com first — the login and password are generated and shown once.
The part worth reading twice
This is the entry on this page most likely to outgrow the 200-a-day cap. Issue and pull-request notifications multiply by the number of watchers, so a busy instance with a dozen active people can pass it without anybody noticing until mail stops.
Where these names come from
Every field above was read off Configuration cheat sheet, Gitea’s own documentation, rather than recalled. If that page and this one disagree, that page is right and this one is out of date — say so.
Related
- Other self-hosted applications
- Connection values and every other application
- All SMTP AUTH error messages
- Tools that are a better fit than this one
Last reviewed 2026-08-29.
Updated 29 Aug 2026