Email ingest to ntfy — NAS, UptimeRobot, and inbox rules

Plenty of boxes still only speak email: a NAS backup job, a cheap uptime plan, a printer, a UPS. You should not stand up a mail parser — or a curl on a disk that has no outbound HTTPS policy — just to hear about a failed backup.

Email ingest already turns a message into an AlertHub alert. Add ntfy as the destination and the same mail becomes a phone notification. Slack is optional. The device never learns a topic URL.

How the hop works

NAS / UptimeRobot / inbox rule
        →  {key}@{level}.sendalert.thealerthub.com
        →  AlertHub (store + dashboard)
        →  ntfy (warning / critical only)

Email field	Alert field
Subject	`ah_title`
Body	`ah_description`
`{key}@warning.…` or `@critical.…`	Level → ntfy priority 4 or 5
Sender	`ah_source` prefixed with `Email:`

Info addresses (@info.) never fan out to ntfy. Use them for noisy daily reports.

Setup (once)

Copy the project secret and pick the ingest address from the email ingest guide:

{YOUR_PROJECT_SECRET_KEY}@critical.sendalert.thealerthub.com
Point the device or a mailbox forward at that address. Keep warning for degraded, critical for down / backup failed.
Subscribe to an unguessable ntfy topic and paste https://ntfy.sh/YOUR_TOPIC in Connections → ntfy.

Docs: email source · ntfy destination.

Alert 1: NAS backup failed

Most NAS units email on job failure. Forward to @critical.… so ntfy priority is 5. Subject is usually enough as the title; you do not need the full log in the notification — the dashboard keeps the body.

Alert 2: UptimeRobot (or any email-only monitor)

If the monitor cannot POST a webhook, it can still send mail. Use @critical.… for down. Recovery mail should go to @info.… or be skipped — celebrating “up” as loudly as “down” trains you to ignore ntfy. Webhook-capable monitors: uptime → ntfy.

Alert 3: Inbox rule instead of a device

Gmail/Outlook rule: if subject contains URGENT or from [email protected], forward to @warning.…. Legacy CRMs and ticket systems that will never grow a webhook still reach the phone.

Do not forward your entire inbox. ntfy will not forgive that.

Ideas to squeeze more value

One topic, many senders. ah_source stays Email: backup@nas vs Email: uptime@… so the feed filters.
Team channel later. Add Slack on the same project without touching the NAS — hybrid on-call.
Self-hosted push. Same ingest address, Gotify if Android ops already runs a server.
Subject is public on the lock screen. Keep PII out of the subject line; put it in the body if you must.

FAQ

Does the NAS need to reach ntfy.sh?
No. It only sends mail to AlertHub. AlertHub calls ntfy.

What if the subject is empty?
Ingest requires a subject. Set one on the device or in the forward rule.

Will newsletters forwarded by mistake page me?
Only if they hit @warning or @critical. Use a dedicated forward, not “redirect all mail”.

Next steps

Forward one test message to @warning.sendalert.thealerthub.com, paste an ntfy topic, and confirm the phone.