Ethereal Email

Spec sheet

Purpose

Ethereal is a free email-catching service for testing outbound email; it stores messages for review and never delivers them.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Audience

The service is mostly aimed at Nodemailer users, but supports any mail client or library that supports SMTP.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Support

The FAQ directs users to the help page, Nodemailer documentation, or [email protected] for assistance.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Account access

Creating an account through Nodemailer provides SMTP credentials instantly without signup or email verification.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Inbound email

Inbound email is disabled for public accounts; the help page says inbound access requires an active EmailEngine subscription and an API key.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Integrations and funding

Ethereal is run by the Nodemailer team and funded by EmailEngine, described as a self-hosted email API for Gmail, Microsoft 365, and IMAP.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Message preview

Users can preview sent messages through a URL from `nodemailer.getTestMessageUrl(info)`, the web interface, or an IMAP/POP3 client.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Protocols

Ethereal provides SMTP, IMAP, and POP3 access; its help page lists STARTTLS for SMTP and TLS for IMAP and POP3.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Retention

Messages are stored for a few hours and then deleted.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Security rationale

The help page says inbound email was discontinued for general accounts after the feature was exploited because anonymous accounts were easy to create.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Sending limit

Public accounts can send up to 200 messages per hour, after which the server temporarily rejects further messages until the next hour.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Storage quota

Each address has a 100MB message-storage quota.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Test accounts

Users can create test accounts with Nodemailer or manually from the login page, and the FAQ says users can create as many as they wish.Read 4 Oct 2026 · ethereal.email

Plans and prices

Every Ethereal Email plan and price →

Where Specifiction places it

• Email Testing Software#13 of 287.9