Email settings for Amazon Cognito user pools

Certain events in your application can cause Amazon Cognito to email your users. For example, if you configure your user pool to require email verification, Amazon Cognito sends an email when a user signs up for a new account in your app or resets their password. Depending on the action that initiates the email, the email contains a verification code or a temporary password.

To handle email delivery, you can use either of the following options:

You can change your delivery option after you create your user pool.

Amazon Cognito sends email messages to your users with either a code that they can enter or a URL link that they can select. The following table shows the events that can generate an email message.

Message options

¹ Requires advanced security features and Amazon SES email configuration.

² For SMS and email messages.

Amazon SES charges for email messages. For more information, see Amazon SES pricing.

To learn more about email MFA, see SMS and email message MFA.

Default email configuration

Amazon Cognito can use its default email configuration to handle email deliveries for you. When you use the default option, Amazon Cognito limits the number of emails it sends each day for your user pool. For information on service limits, see Quotas in Amazon Cognito. For typical production environments, the default email limit is below the required delivery volume. To enable a higher delivery volume, you can use your Amazon SES email configuration.

When you use the default configuration, you use Amazon SES resources that are managed by AWS to send email messages. Amazon SES adds email addresses that return a hard bounce to an account-level suppression list or a global suppression list. If an undeliverable email address becomes deliverable later, you can't control its removal from the suppression list while your user pool is configured to use the default configuration. An email address can remain on the AWS-managed suppression list indefinitely. To manage undeliverable email addresses, use your Amazon SES email configuration with an account-level suppression list, as described in the next section.

When you use the default email configuration, you can use either of the following email addresses as the FROM address:

Amazon SES email configuration

Your application might require a higher delivery volume than what is available with the default option. To increase the possible delivery volume, use your Amazon SES resources with your user pool to email your users. You can also monitor your email sending activity when you send email messages with your own Amazon SES configuration.

Before you can use your Amazon SES configuration, you must verify one or more email addresses, or a domain, with Amazon SES. Use a verified email address, or an address from a verified domain, as the FROM email address that you assign to your user pool. When Amazon Cognito sends email to a user, it calls Amazon SES for you and uses your email address.

When you use your Amazon SES configuration, the following conditions apply:

Amazon SES email configuration Regions

The AWS Region where you create a user pool will have one of three requirements for the configuration of email messages with Amazon SES. You might send email messages from Amazon SES in the same Region as your user pool, several Regions including the same Region, or one or more remote Regions. For best performance, send email messages with a Amazon SES verified identity in the same Region as your user pool when you have the option.

If you create a user pool programmatically–with an AWS SDK, the Amazon Cognito API or CLI, the AWS CDK, or AWS CloudFormation–your user pool sends email messages with the Amazon SES identity that the SourceArn parameter of EmailConfiguration specifies for your user pool. The Amazon SES identity must occupy a supported AWS Region. If your EmailSendingAccount is COGNITO_DEFAULT and you don't specify a SourceArn parameter, Amazon Cognito sends email messages from no-reply@verificationemail.com using resources in the Region where you created your user pool.

The following table shows the AWS Regions where you can use Amazon SES identities with Amazon Cognito.

¹ Used in user pools with the default email configuration. Amazon Cognito distributes email messages among verified identities with the same email address in each Region. To use a custom FROM address, configure EmailConfiguration with a SourceArn parameter in the format arn:${Partition}:ses:*:${Account}:identity/${IdentityName}.

Configuring email for your user pool

Complete the following steps to configure the email settings for your user pool. Depending on the settings that you use, you might need IAM permissions in Amazon SES, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), and Amazon Cognito.

Step 1: Verify your email address or domain with Amazon SES

Before you configure your user pool, you must verify one or more domains or email addresses with Amazon SES if you want to do either of the following:

By verifying your email address or domain, you confirm that you own it, which helps prevent unauthorized use.

For information on verifying an email address with Amazon SES, see Verifying an Email Address in the Amazon Simple Email Service Developer Guide. For information on verifying a domain with Amazon SES, see Verifying domains.

Step 2: Move your account out of the Amazon SES sandbox

Omit this step if you are using the default Amazon Cognito email configuration.

When you first use Amazon SES in any AWS Region, it places your AWS account in the Amazon SES sandbox for that Region. Amazon SES uses the sandbox to prevent fraud and abuse. If you use your Amazon SES configuration to handle email delivery, you must move your AWS account out of the sandbox before Amazon Cognito can email your users.

In the sandbox, Amazon SES imposes restrictions on how many emails you can send and where you can send them. You can send emails only to addresses and domains that you have verified with Amazon SES, or you can send them to Amazon SES mailbox simulator addresses. While your AWS account remains in the sandbox, don't use your Amazon SES configuration for applications that are in production. In this situation, Amazon Cognito can't send messages to your users' email addresses.

To remove your AWS account from the sandbox, see Moving out of the Amazon SES sandbox in the Amazon Simple Email Service Developer Guide.

Step 3: Grant email permissions to Amazon Cognito

You might need to grant specific permissions to Amazon Cognito before it can email your users. The permissions that you grant, and the process that you use to grant them, depend on whether you are using the default email configuration, or your Amazon SES configuration.

Step 4: Configure your user pool

Complete the following steps if you want to configure your user pool with any of the following:

Omit this procedure if you want to use the default Amazon Cognito email configuration and address.

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