# NotificationsAuthelia sends messages to users in order to verify their identity. This section describes how to configure this.

Authelia sends messages to users in order to verify their identity.

## Configuration

{{< config-alert-example >}}

```yaml {title="configuration.yml"}
notifier:
  disable_startup_check: false
  template_path: ''
  filesystem: {}
  smtp: {}
```

## Provider Requirements
You **must** configure exactly one notification provider: either `filesystem` or `smtp`. These providers are mutually exclusive - you cannot configure both at the same time.

## Options

This section describes the individual configuration options.

### disable_startup_check

{{< confkey type="boolean" default="false" required="no" >}}

{{< callout context="danger" title="Warning" icon="outline/alert-octagon" >}}
It is highly recommend you address any issues/errors generated by startup checks rather than disabling the startup checks. By disabling the startup checks you won't know that notifications don't send until you attempt to send a notification.
{{< /callout >}}

The two notification providers have a startup check which validates the specified provider configuration and verifies the provider can send notifications:
- For **SMTP**: Verifies connectivity to the mail server and validates any provided credentials.
- For **Filesystem**: Verifies the target directory exists and that the specified file can be created/modified.
The startup checks can be disabled with the `disable_startup_check` option.

### template_path

{{< confkey type="string" required="no" >}}

{{< callout context="note" title="Note" icon="outline/info-circle" >}}
You may configure this directory and add only add the templates you wish to override, any templates not
supplied in this folder will utilize the default templates.
{{< /callout >}}

This option allows the administrator to set a path to a directory where custom templates for notifications can be found.
The specifics are located in the
[Notification Templates Reference Guide](../../reference/guides/notification-templates.md).

### filesystem

The [filesystem](file.md) provider.

### smtp

The [smtp](smtp.md) provider.