Choose who gets test emails

A staging instance does not send email to the real recipients. Every email the site would send, from a form notification to a password reset, goes to a list of test addresses instead, so you can try things without emailing a customer. This guide sets that list and walks the other three settings on the same screen. You need to be an administrator of the instance.

Set the test email recipients

1. In the admin, go to Settings > Instance Configuration.
2. Find Email Notifications and select Edit.
3. Enter the email addresses that should receive the instance's email. Use the add button to add another address.
4. Select Save.

From now on, every email the staging instance sends arrives at those addresses, whatever address the email was written to. The setting only exists on staging. A production instance sends to the real recipients, and the setting is not shown there.

Turn API notifications on or off

An API notification calls another system when something happens on your instance, such as a form submission sent to a mailing-list service. On staging you may not want those calls to go out. On the same screen, find API Notifications, select Edit, choose enabled or disabled and save. This setting is also staging-only.

Set the session timeout

User Session Timeout signs an administrator out after a number of idle minutes. Select Edit, enter the minutes and save. A shorter timeout is safer on shared computers; a longer one suits a team that keeps the admin open all day.

Maintenance mode

Maintenance Mode takes your public site offline behind a holding page while you make a change, and the admin keeps working. Turn it on and off from the same screen. Only a Developer or above in the Console can change it.

Next steps

• Set your date format and time zoneHow dates and times show across the admin.
• Instance ConfigurationThe reference for this screen.
• EnvironmentsStaging and production, and what differs.