Hi,
Am evaluating all options for self-hosting my own mailserver. I am probably looking to host it in GCP or AWS, as I don’t want to worry about availability on a really small VM
Would really appreaciate any recommendations from the combined wisdom of this subreddit, on what the most ideal stack to self host would be and any tips to not make any silly security errors.
Would be nice to solve a couple main problems, the main one being, I have older backups in a few different formats, .pst, .olm and .mbox. I want to bring all of these together, in one mail account and have them searchable and syncable to devices.
Is there a mail server that can even import all these formats?
I know email clients can import but I’ve never imported into a server. I’m guessing I could import into a local client then sync to the server somehow?
Did have it so that these mailboxes were imported on one of my PCs in Thunderbird. Oh my god was that awful, the search is absolutely shocking and most of the time, when you need to find an old email you are not at home, sat by the desktop computer.
Am really looking for something with a somewhat decent Web mail interface, I use webmail alot right now. Doesn’t have to be Gmail level smooth, but more than anything I just want search to be good. Fast, presented well and accurate/smart.
Came across AnonAddy Source Code which seems like such an amazing idea that I’ve never come across before, so would love to integrate that into the solution. If anyone is aware of incompatibility between this and certain self host servers would appreaciate the heads up
Not too sure about spam-filters and email AVs. I’m not too clued up on that, obviously I would like to avoid spam and that anonaddy thing might go a long way but if the mail server just has basic rules and sweep features that would be good enough.
Not too worried about the privacy / encryption focus I’ve seen on some self-hosted mailservers. Moving to my own mail server must be somewhat better than what ms/google are harvesting from me data wise at the moment. Even if it is in their cloud.
What is everyone’s experience of these?:
Also is there any mileage in running the web mail client separately? Do they have better search and UX than any of the built in ones?
Thanks in advance
I use Proxmox Mail Gateway (as a mail gateway) and I can only recommend that. It keeps spam at nearly zero and it is very lightweight and easy to set up. Plus it gives you flexibility where and how to host the actual mail server.
Microsoft has blacklisted most IPs so you’ll most probably need to send them a message to whitelist your mail server or gateway once everything is configured correctly.
If you’re looking for a more than just plain mail check out solutions like Grommunio and Axigen. Some commercial solutions have free versions with minor limitations.
Importing old emails can be done via the client and not directly at the server. There are good solutions for mail archiving and searching (like Mailstore). I’d use that for mails older than two years.
While I like to idea of AnonAddy and I understand your reasons, I just don’t think it is worth the hassle. Eventually your “real” email address will somehow end up in spammers list, but a good spam filter, like the one in Proxmox mail gateway will keep your mailbox clean.
All in all, self hosting a mail server is a bit of work in the beginning, but definitely doable.
Agreed. I use Promox with Mailcow/SOGo. Works beautifully.
And people who think it’s a ‘one and done’ are gravely mistaken. It’s a constant monitor 'n tweak. Spam doesn’t resolve itself… 😉