Hello Eugene, Replying as the author of: https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/57354.
For context, PR: https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/57354 rewrote the email sending helper to construct SmtpNotifier directly, instead of going through the utils module. That function is what previously read [email]email_backend and dispatched to whatever the backend was configured. There was a PR shortly after: #65072 which fixed the email_conn_id half of #65012 but the issue was closed without the email_backend half being addressed (likely part of the AI triage tool - @Jarek Potiuk <[email protected]> worth tweaking some instructions there). That was an oversight, not a decision and nothing in the operator deprecation warnings or docs says custom email_backends stop working. So to answer your question directly: unintentional, not a documented breaking change. I plan to take a look in the email sending helper, and if a deployment has explicitly customized email_backend, restore the old send_email() dispatch for backward compatibility. I will get to it shortly. Thanks & Regards, Amogh Desai On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 2:54 PM Eugen Kosteev <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi. > > *tl;dr* In Airflow 3.2 a breaking change introduced with > [email]email_backend no longer respected. > Github issue: https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/65012 (closed, but > it wasn't resolved) > > [email]email_backend Airflow configuration property should be one of the > most usable properties in Airflow 2 (prior to Airflow 3), > and it is likely not all (most of) Airflow users didn't yet migrate to > SmtpNotifiers in Airflow 3.1 (since there was backward compatibility > maintained). > > What is the community's stance on this? Was this breaking change (in minor > Airflow version) introduced accidentally? > If this was intended breaking change, should we then at least have a note > about it in Release Notes for Airflow 3.2.0 (currently there is no > mentioning of this)? > > https://airflow.apache.org/docs/apache-airflow/stable/release_notes.html#airflow-3-2-0-2026-04-07 > > > *Background:* > In Airflow 3.0 email/email_on_retry/email_on_retry task parameters were > deprecated (in favor of SmtpNotifier(s)), > DAGs using these parameters will have warning messages but still continue > to work using [email]email_backend and > [email]email_conn_id Airflow configuration properties to send emails: > > https://github.com/apache/airflow/blob/3.0.6/task-sdk/src/airflow/sdk/bases/operator.py#L1048 > > https://github.com/apache/airflow/blob/3.0.6/task-sdk/src/airflow/sdk/execution_time/task_runner.py#L1157 > > https://github.com/apache/airflow/blob/3.0.6/airflow-core/src/airflow/utils/email.py#L72 > > Since Airflow 3.2.0, mails on email_on_retry and email_on_failure are > sent using > SmtpNotifier, bypassing the configured email_backend (and email_conn_id - > this was fixed later). > > https://github.com/apache/airflow/blob/3.2.0/task-sdk/src/airflow/sdk/execution_time/task_runner.py#L1612 > https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/65072 > > There was an open issue https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/65012 > about > this, and it was closed with partial fix "fix stmp email callback to use > email_conn_id". > Overall this change - stop respecting [email]email_backend in > email_on_retry/email_on_retry, forces Airflow users to update their Dags to > use on_*_callback(s) before migrating. > > -- > Eugene >
