n8n email and the Microsoft 365 Basic auth shutdown
n8n is a self-hosted workflow automation platform - the free alternative to Zapier, used to wire alerts and notifications between other self-hosted tools. It sends:
- whatever a workflow is built to send - failure alerts, status digests, form-submission notices - through its Send Email node, to whoever the workflow author configured
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
The volume is whatever the workflows generate, decided by the person who built them, and n8n itself imposes no floor. A homelab running a handful of alert workflows never approaches 200 a day; a business running high-volume campaigns through n8n is the wrong audience for this regardless of the limit.
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 n8n it usually is not.
Settings
Credentials -> New -> Send Email, in the web UI.
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
User | your @msgwing.com login |
Password | your @msgwing.com password |
Host | mx.msgwing.com |
Port | 587 |
SSL/TLS | on |
Disable STARTTLS | off |
Register at msgwing.com first — the login and password are generated and shown once.
The part worth reading twice
n8n exposes SSL/TLS as one toggle rather than a STARTTLS-vs-implicit-TLS choice. Leave SSL/TLS on and Disable STARTTLS off for port 587 - the two settings sound like opposites and are not: the second only matters when the first is off, and toggling both off at once sends the password unencrypted.
Where these names come from
Every field above was read off Send Email credentials, n8n’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 If that page and this one disagree, that page is right and this one is out of date — say so.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