---
title: Troubleshooting Email sending
:::info
Some hosting providers block outgoing SMTP ports, in which case you'll have to host an SMTP relay on a different port with a different provider.
:::
To test if an email stage, or the global email settings are configured correctly, you can run the following command:
```
ak test_email <to address> [-S <stage name>]
If you omit the `-S` parameter, the email will be sent using the global settings. Otherwise, the settings of the specified stage will be used.
To run this command with docker-compose, use
docker-compose exec worker ak test_email [...]
To run this command with Kubernetes, use
kubectl exec -it deployment/authentik-worker -c authentik -- ak test_email [...]