this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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[Question] Does anyone run their own email server? (lemmy.one)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/selfhosted
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All this new excitement with Lemmy and federation has got me thinking that maybe I should learn to run my own instance. What always comes up though is how email is the orginal federated technology.

I am looking at proxmox and see that is has a built in email server, so now I am wondering if it is time to role my own.

I stopped using gmail a long time ago, and right now I use ProtonMail, but I am super frustrated with the dumb limitation of only having a single account for the app. I get why they do it, and I am willing to pay, but it is pricey and I don't know if that is my best option. I guess it is worth it since ProtonVPN is included. It looks like they are expanding their suite.

Is it worth it? Can I make it secure? Is it stupid to run it off a local computer on my home network?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's various outbound mail providers, and some have free plans. For example, SMTP2Go is free for 1000 emails per month, and Mailgun is free for 5000 emails per month. What you'd do is set up your own email server, and configure it to relay via SMTP2Go or Mailgun. Your client systems don't need to know this - they just send their emails to your server, which then relays them to the relevant service.

I use Mailcow and all of this is configurable in its web UI. No need to edit config files.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice. That is way more emails than I ever deal with in a month. Maybe in a year. I am really conservative with my online stuff, mostly because I hated the idea of managing so much crap even if it is something I want.

So, I am going to play with Mailcow, Mailinabox, and iRedMail.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good choices! I also tried those three. Mailcow was my favourite but maybe you'll like one of the other ones better. Mailcow uses Docker (which I prefer compared to installing software directly on the system) and has a nice admin panel. They're all good choices though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I keep saying it but I need to get familiar with docker, especially to run all other kinds of services.

I guess I will try mailcow first.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You don't need to know too much about Docker to use Mailcow. It comes with a preconfigured docker-compose.yml so you just need to install Docker and follow Mailcow's installation instructions (which are pretty straightforward)

If you have any spare domains that you aren't using (or domains you're not currently using email with), you could test it out with that domain before moving any domains you care about :) That's what I did.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Right on. The first domain I will buy will be a personal fun one, just to experiment and mess around. I don't quite know what professional name I want for my domain, since I don't have a brand or anything, and having just my name seems odd.