Test Requirements For these tests you will need: Outbound mail to be correctly configured and working on your system. Recommend the use of mailhog to catch outbound mail, which may be simpler. A test email account. This will be the account that your Moodle instance connects to, and as such, this account should have very few emails in its inbox. Scanning the inbox takes time. It must be accessible over imap. outlook and gmail are known to work, however, If using gmail, you may find that IMAP does not work with Google's higher security setting. If IMAP is not working with gmail, check out https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255?hl=en-GB A second email account, which will be used to send email TO the moodle-controlled account above. You can just use your personal email account here. Initial setup Setup VERP handling: Open Site administration -> Server -> Incoming mail configuration Enable incoming mail processing; Add your inbound mailbox details, using the details of the first email account (mailbox name, email domain, incoming mail server, username, password). You can leave SSL on auto detect here. Save changes Open Site administration -> Server -> Email -> Message Handlers Enable the "Email to private files" and "Reply to forum posts" handlers Reduce the max editing time of your forum messages to preserve testing sanity Open Site administration -> Security -> Site security settings Set the maxediting time to 1 minute Create a new course Enrol a student, s1 Change the email address of the user s1, so that it is set to the address of the second email account Create a new forum in that course - choose auto subscription Forum test As the admin, create a new post in your forum; wait a minute; run cron to send the forum e-mail Check your e-mail (i.e. check mailhog). You should have received an e-mail for s1. Next, we'll need to reply to the message as your first user, s1 Copy the reply-to address from the message header. Compose a new email using the second email account, and paste in the address. Note: This email address must match the address in the user profile as per that step in the initial set up Set subject to anything Enter "This is an email reply to the forum post, from s1" Send the email Wait a minute, then run cron again. Alternatively, just run the pickup task: php ./admin/tool/task/cli/schedule_task.php --execute=\\tool_messageinbound\\task\\pickup_task Confirm the blissful absence of error messages in the cron task Confirm that the message was posted in the forum Private Files Log in as s1 and go to the private files page (click the link in the nav drawer) Confirm that an e-mail address is now shown on the private files page Send an e-mail, using the second email account, to the address provided in the private files section. Include two attachments - one inline and one as an attachment Run cron Confirm the blissful absence of error messages in the cron task Confirm that both the files was uploaded to private files