obsidian/wiki/payloadcms/fields-email.md

title	aliases	tags	sources	created	updated
Email Field	payload-email-field email-field-payloadcms	payloadcms fields email validation	raw/fields__email.md	2026-05-15	2026-05-15

Overview

The Email field enforces that the stored value is a valid email address. It renders a standard email input in the Admin Panel with built-in format validation on both client and server.

import type { Field } from 'payload'

export const MyEmailField: Field = {
  name: 'contact',
  type: 'email',
}

Key Takeaways

• type: 'email' — built-in email format validation, no custom validator needed for basic use
• Inherits all base field options: required, unique, index, localized, hidden, defaultValue, hooks, access, saveToJWT, virtual
• unique: true creates a database-level unique index on the field path
• index: true — add if you query by email frequently (e.g. user lookup)
• saveToJWT: true — embeds email into JWT/cookie; useful for reading email in access control without a DB round-trip (see wiki/payloadcms/authentication-token-data)
• virtual: true — field is not persisted to DB; use for computed or derived email values

Config Options

Option	Description
name *	DB property name
label	Admin panel label (string or per-locale object)
unique	DB-level unique index
index	Query performance index
validate	Custom validation function (client + server)
saveToJWT	Include in user JWT token
hooks	Field lifecycle hooks
access	Field-level access control
hidden	Exclude from API and admin UI (still stored in DB)
defaultValue	Default email value
localized	Enable per-locale storage (requires global localization config)
required	Make field mandatory
admin	Admin UI options (see below)
virtual	Skip DB persistence; or path string to link to a relationship

Admin Options

admin: {
  placeholder: 'user@example.com',
  autoComplete: 'email',
}

Property	Description
placeholder	Placeholder string shown in the input
autoComplete	Browser autocomplete attribute value

Plus all standard wiki/payloadcms/fields-basic.

Example — Full Config

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const Contacts: CollectionConfig = {
  slug: 'contacts',
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'contact',
      type: 'email',
      label: 'Contact Email Address',
      required: true,
      unique: true,
      index: true,
      saveToJWT: false,
      admin: {
        placeholder: 'user@example.com',
        autoComplete: 'email',
      },
    },
  ],
}

Custom Components

Field — Server

import type { EmailFieldServerComponent } from 'payload'
import { EmailField } from '@payloadcms/ui'

export const CustomEmailFieldServer: EmailFieldServerComponent = ({
  clientField, path, schemaPath, permissions,
}) => (
  <EmailField field={clientField} path={path} schemaPath={schemaPath} permissions={permissions} />
)

Field — Client

'use client'
import type { EmailFieldClientComponent } from 'payload'
import { EmailField } from '@payloadcms/ui'

export const CustomEmailFieldClient: EmailFieldClientComponent = (props) => (
  <EmailField {...props} />
)

Label — Server

import type { EmailFieldLabelServerComponent } from 'payload'
import { FieldLabel } from '@payloadcms/ui'

export const CustomEmailFieldLabelServer: EmailFieldLabelServerComponent = ({ clientField, path }) => (
  <FieldLabel label={clientField?.label || clientField?.name} path={path} required={clientField?.required} />
)

Label — Client

'use client'
import type { EmailFieldLabelClientComponent } from 'payload'
import { FieldLabel } from '@payloadcms/ui'

export const CustomEmailFieldLabelClient: EmailFieldLabelClientComponent = ({ field, path }) => (
  <FieldLabel label={field?.label || field?.name} path={path} required={field?.required} />
)

Related

• wiki/payloadcms/fields-basic — all scalar field types overview
• wiki/payloadcms/authentication-token-data — use saveToJWT to embed email into JWT
• wiki/payloadcms/database-indexes — unique and index internals
• wiki/payloadcms/authentication-overview — Users collection with email auth
• wiki/payloadcms/custom-components-authoring — RSC vs Client component rules

---

Source: raw/fields__email.md — https://payloadcms.com/docs/fields/email