Settings

Let's walk through each one.

General

Settings > General is where you configure the basics of your Punchmail installation.

Platform Settings

Platform Name — The name of your Punchmail instance. This is used in the interface and can be whatever you like (e.g., “Acme Marketing”, “Newsletter Hub”).
Platform URL — The URL where Punchmail is hosted (e.g., https://mail.yourcompany.com). This is used for tracking links, unsubscribe pages, and signup forms.
Timezone — Your preferred timezone for scheduling campaigns and displaying timestamps throughout the interface. A wide range of timezones is available, from UTC through the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Pacific regions.

Default Sender Identity

These defaults are used when you create new campaigns or lists:

FROM Name — The name recipients see in their inbox (e.g., “Your Company”).
FROM Email — The email address campaigns are sent from (e.g., noreply@yourcompany.com).
Reply-To — Where replies go when someone hits “Reply” on your email. If left blank, replies go to the FROM email.
Return-Path — The technical address where bounce notifications are sent. Usually something like bounce@yourcompany.com.

API & Webhooks

If your installation has a webhook API key configured, it appears here in a read-only card. You can reveal, hide, or copy the key. This key is used as a Bearer token in the Authorization header when external services (like your SMTP provider) send webhook events to Punchmail.

SMTP

Settings > SMTP controls the global defaults for email sending. For detailed setup of individual SMTP connectors and pools, see the SMTP guide.

This tab lets you set:

Default Connector — Which SMTP connector to use by default for new campaigns.
Default Pool — Which SMTP pool to use by default (pools rotate between multiple connectors).
Max Parallel Connections — How many simultaneous SMTP connections Punchmail can open. Higher numbers send faster but use more resources.
Rate Limits — Control how many emails per hour can be sent:
Per campaign
Platform-wide (across all campaigns)
Per individual connector

Rate limits are your safety net against accidentally overwhelming your SMTP provider or triggering sending limits. Set them to match your provider's thresholds.

Bounce Processing

Settings > Bounce Processing controls how Punchmail handles emails that can't be delivered.

Bounce Thresholds

Hard bounce threshold — How many hard bounces (permanent delivery failures) before a subscriber is automatically suppressed. The default is 1, meaning a single hard bounce disables the subscriber. This is the recommended setting — hard bounces mean the address doesn't exist.
Soft bounce threshold — How many soft bounces (temporary delivery failures) within the soft bounce window before a subscriber is suppressed. The default is 5.
Soft bounce window (days) — The time period for counting soft bounces. The default is 7 days. If a subscriber soft-bounces 5 times within 7 days, they're suppressed.

Bounce Mailboxes

Punchmail can connect to a dedicated mailbox to automatically process bounce messages. You can add multiple bounce mailboxes:

Name — A label for this mailbox.
Protocol — IMAP or POP3.
Host, Port, Encryption — Connection details for the mailbox.
Username and Password — Login credentials.
Poll Interval — How often (in minutes) Punchmail checks for new bounce messages.
Default — Whether this is the primary bounce mailbox.

You can test each mailbox connection to make sure the credentials are correct before relying on it.

Alternatively, many SMTP providers support webhook-based bounce notifications, which can be configured using the webhook API key from the General tab.

Suppression

Settings > Suppression gives you a quick summary of your suppression setup and lets you manage custom fields (see below). For full suppression list management — creating lists, adding entries, importing, exporting — head to the dedicated Suppression section in the sidebar. See the Suppression Lists guide for a complete walkthrough.

Users

Settings > Users is where you manage who has access to your Punchmail installation.

Roles

Punchmail has three user roles:

Role	What they can do
Admin	Full access to everything, including user management and settings.
Operator	Can manage lists, subscribers, campaigns, templates, and segments — the day-to-day email marketing work.
Reporter	Read-only access. Can view dashboards, campaign reports, and subscriber data, but can't create or modify anything.

Managing Users

Add a user — Click the create button, enter their name, email address, role, and a password.
Edit a user — Change their name, email, or role.
Reset a password — Generate a new password for a user without editing their other details.
Delete a user — Remove a user from the platform. You can't delete yourself, and you can't delete the last remaining admin (there must always be at least one).

Tracking

Settings > Tracking controls how Punchmail monitors engagement with your emails. This is covered in detail in the Tracking & Analytics guide, but here's the quick summary:

Open Tracking — Toggle on/off. When enabled, a transparent tracking pixel is inserted into outgoing emails.
Click Tracking — Toggle on/off. When enabled, links are routed through your tracking domain so clicks can be recorded.
Custom Tracking Domain — Set a domain like track.yourcompany.com for your tracking links. The page shows you exactly which CNAME record to add in your DNS.

Engagor

Settings > Engagor manages the connection to Engagor, the AI-powered deliverability monitoring service.

Before Activation

Enter your Engagor API key and click Activate. Once connected, the Deliverability page in the sidebar will show live data about your domain reputation, bounce rates, blacklist status, and more.

After Activation

The page shows your connection status and a summary of deliverability data. You can:

View or hide your API key.
Disconnect Engagor if needed (this stops deliverability monitoring).
Open the full Engagor dashboard in a new tab for deeper analysis.

See the Sending Domains & Deliverability guide for more about what Engagor provides.

Custom Fields

Settings > Custom Fields lets you define additional data fields for your subscribers beyond the built-in ones (email, first name, last name).

For a detailed walkthrough of creating and managing custom fields, see the Custom Fields guide. Here's the quick version:

Create a field — Give it a name, choose a type (Text, Number, Date, Boolean, or Dropdown), and for dropdowns, define the available options.
Edit a field — Change its name, type, or options.
Reorder fields — Move fields up or down to control the order they appear in subscriber forms.
Delete a field — Remove a field and its data. Be careful with this one — deletion is permanent.

Custom fields are used in subscriber profiles, import mapping, signup forms, and as segmentation criteria.

The Onboarding Wizard

When you first install Punchmail, you'll be guided through a setup wizard before you reach the main interface. This walks you through five steps:

SMTP Setup — Configure your first mail server connection and test it.
Create a List — Set up your first mailing list.
Add a Subscriber — Add yourself (or a test address) as the first subscriber.
Create a Campaign — Set up a test campaign with a subject line.
Send a Test — Send your first email to confirm everything is working end-to-end.

The wizard creates real resources (an actual SMTP connector, list, subscriber, and campaign), so you're not starting from scratch once you're done. After completing the wizard, you're taken straight to the main dashboard.

If you've already completed the wizard, you won't see it again. Everything it created lives in the normal interface and can be edited or deleted like anything else.

Tips

Set your timezone first. If your timezone is wrong, scheduled campaigns will go out at the wrong time.
Configure bounce processing early. The default thresholds are sensible, but make sure you have at least one method of processing bounces (mailbox or webhooks) set up before you start sending at volume.
Start with “Operator” for most team members. Admins can do everything, but most people only need operator-level access.
Bookmark the Settings page. You'll come back here more often than you think, especially for SMTP rate limits and bounce thresholds as your sending scales up.