I just started using Delta Chat and I can't figure out how to send and recieve emails from people as chats

TLDR: I set up my profile using testrun org and I can’t talk to people outside of Delta Chat through emails. Please walk me through on how to set this up. :distorted_face:

Ok I just started using Delta chat and I just did the default setup for the profile with testrun org chatmail server and stuff and that’s where I am as of right now. You know, one of my favorite aspects of the app I learned was how we can reach out to people through the chat app by using their email address. This eliminates the problem where you face the lack of people or friends that haven’t used the app and actually broadens the amount of people you can connect with. But however, this is the problem I’m facing right now. So I finished setting up the profile and tried to search up an email to test it just like how the old video from the official YouTube channel showed but when I do enter an email in the search bar, it says it can’t find any matches for me to add them as contacts and stuff. So I can’t seem to write a message to an email either and the only way of adding contacts is through QR and you need another person to have Delta chat for that as well. I even tried emailing the testrun email that was created to see if I could recieve but apparently the emails doesn’t get sent either and it’ll bounce right back to the user as well.

So its clear I’m off to a wrong start already and there wasn’t much I could configure in the settings either. So this is why I must ask any of you guys for help on this. Is it because I actually picked testrun email or something? I don’t want to be a huge piece of work considering this is probably some basic stuff but I hope one of you can tell me how to properly set this up. Thank you in advance.

For security purposes, the public testrun server only allows sending encrypted emails by default. Each chatmail operator can configure whether to enable this or not for their own users.

You may send an unencrypted email directly to a given email address if you set up your own classic mailbox (take care to only use this address from Delta Chat exclusively) or you install a chatmail server and enable sending unencrpted email for yourself. It will then appear in the menu of the client. You also need to disable spam filtering to receive unencrypted email inside your Delta Chat client in such cases under :gear: Settings → Advanced → Relays → :pen: edit → :plus: More Options → Enforce Encryption for All Relays :left_arrow: :stop_button:

Otherwise, you can send encrypted mail to classic contacts if they already have PGP installed by creating a contact vcard for them with their email address and PGP public key included. See:

I haven’t seen this in the documentation. Do you have a link where I can read this information?