What emails does bernard send, and who gets them?
Bernard sends two kinds of email, and they're deliberately kept apart: mail to you, about your account and your site — and mail to your customers, on your behalf. Who each one comes from is a matter of honesty, not just plumbing.
Mail to you — always from bernard
Sign-in links, receipts for your bernard subscription, a heads-up that your domain needs attention: these are bernard talking to you, so they come from bernard's own address. They always will — mail from bernard pretending to be from your own business would be strange to receive and misleading to send.
Mail to your customers — from you
Messages that go to your audience are a different matter: they should read as coming from you, because they are. This is where the optional email records come in (see Emails to my customers should come from my own address):
- With your address set up, these messages go out from your own address — like
[email protected]— in a clean layout carrying your name, not bernard's branding. - Without it, they still send: bernard uses its own on-your-behalf address, with your name shown as the sender and replies routed to your real inbox. Nothing waits on the records.
Either way, replies always land in the inbox you already use. Bernard never holds your conversations.
Where to see them all
Your site has an Emails page (under "This site" in the sidebar). It shows the address your messages currently send from, and a preview of each kind of message bernard can send for you — today that's a preview email you can send to yourself, and the list grows as bernard's customer messages, like shop receipts, come online. Press "Send me a preview" and the real thing arrives in your own inbox, so there are no surprises about what your customers would see.
Nothing goes out behind your back: customer messages are triggered by things your customers do (like buying something), marketing-style messages carry a working unsubscribe that bernard honours automatically, and the Emails page is the living catalogue of the lot. If you're weighing up trust more broadly, Is it safe to let an AI edit my site? covers how approvals and undo work across everything bernard does.
The prompt
“Show me what emails bernard can send on behalf of [my site] — what they look like, what address they come from, and send me a preview so I can see one in my own inbox.”
The [bracketed] parts are yours to fill in. First time? Connect bernard to your AI over MCP — a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI — then paste the prompt above.
Questions people ask
- Does bernard email my customers without me knowing?
- No. Bernard only emails your customers when something they did calls for it — and today, the only message that sends from your site's Emails page is a preview to you. You can see every kind of message bernard can send, and how it looks, on that page at any time — the same way changes to your site always wait for your approval before going live.
- What address do emails to my customers come from?
- Once you've added the optional email records, from your own address — like [email protected] — dressed in your style. Before that, bernard sends from its own address on your behalf, clearly as bernard, and replies still come straight to your real inbox either way.
- Why do some emails come from bernard and not from me?
- Mail that is genuinely from bernard to you — sign-in links, your subscription receipts, a note that your domain needs attention — always comes from bernard's own address. It would be odd and misleading dressed up as anyone else. Only messages to your customers carry your name.
- Can my customers unsubscribe?
- Yes — any marketing-style message bernard sends for you carries a working unsubscribe link, and bernard honours it automatically. Receipts and other practical messages don't need one, the same as any shop. You never have to manage an unsubscribe list yourself.