Forumite Members › General Topics › Tech › Website and Hosting Talk › Local Email Server
- This topic has 15 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 4 months ago by
Ed P.
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October 16, 2020 at 8:53 pm #62629
I’m looking at changing my email provider to get a new email address – I’ve got space with my hosting at Mythic Beasts, but it’s not a huge amount of space (5GB, shared with my website), so keeping all my emails there isn’t ideal.
It supports IMAP and POP – I was considering setting it up so that I access via IMAP on all my devices, but then have a desktop setup to download the emails via POP so I’ve an offline copy and it’s not stored on the server. I rarely need to search email whilst not at a PC, so that isn’t an issue and webmail access isn’t often needed.
I was wondering if the Synology was able to download the data for me and serve it as a local email archive (i.e. instead of accessing Mythic Beasts server, I access Synology.me, with the NAS downloading the emails for me) – sending would be via Mythic Beasts but saved via Synology as well. Mail Station appears that it might work.
Failing that, is there a Linux solution that would work?
Otherwise I guess I’ll roll out Thunderbird and just download the emails via POP.
"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett
October 17, 2020 at 9:28 am #62639I thought Dan had his own Linux mail server, so maybe he can answer your question when he dips in. If he doesn’t perhaps a PM may get a response.
October 17, 2020 at 9:30 am #62641I looked at this myself and I’m still not sure if you can use the mail server to bring in third party mail, however you could forward email to it i.e. me@my-email.co.uk forwards to me@my-synology.co.uk. I don’t think that would deal with replies though. Setting up a mail server is a total PITA anyway, best avoided for any number of reasons.
Ionos do an automatic archiving service for £2.50 a month for 5GB and can cover multiple addresses on the account. Nothing can be deleted inside the retention period you set without jumping through some hoops which makes it GDPR complaint. It automatically expands at £1 per 2GB.
Personally my main business email and data is hosted by Office 365 and I use Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 to back it all up. I set up a retention period of 30 days but you can set what you want.
When I’m doing email migrations I just use Thunderbird to archive the source mail account. You could then backup that profile. Ionos would be my preferred solution but Thunderbird should work well. Sounds like a Pi job?
October 17, 2020 at 11:17 am #62648In case others do not know import/export tools for TBird makes it very easy to make MBox archives. The link gives all the details.
October 17, 2020 at 1:29 pm #62650After some Googling and investigation, it seems that Dovecot can do what I need but it appears that the easiest solution is just to use Thunderbird (or email client of choice) to access.
For personal emails, I was just looking at keeping it on the host – I’ve already got a Fastmail account, but that essentially just aggregates my iCloud and Gmail emails. And I’m looking at moving away from iCloud, as it has hidden filtering, which has prevented me getting mail on a couple of occasions. That’s the one that has a reasonable email handle as well (I.e. doesn’t involve Drezha, which perhaps doesn’t look so good on non personal emails!)
Thunderbird is good, but I think I’ve a lifetime key for Postbox which is based on Thunderbird. Of course, I’ve also got access to Outlook.
@EdP – Thunderbird now uses Maildir doesn’t it? sure it used to use Mbox.
"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett
October 17, 2020 at 1:39 pm #62653I keep going through this thread and still can not make out what you’re wanting. This is my fault, not yours. Anyhow, I’ll just type some stuff.
Local email server: Webmin is my pick. It mostly sets it all up for you.
IMAP: If you want an IMAP address I can set you up a forumite email address for free i.e drezha@forumite.co.uk
Transfers: In most email apps, create a local account, drag all your emails into it, and then do the same to move them to a new account.
Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!
October 17, 2020 at 4:46 pm #62656I’m all sorted on the accounts and transfers thanks – I’ve transferred between iCloud and Fastmail often enough to in the past 6 months whilst debating if I was going to pay for another year!
What I was after was like the fetch email feature in Gmail – this downloads emails from other accounts in to Gmail and then all accessing is done via Gmail. However, I wanted this to be on my NAS if possible. Using Gmail may be an option still, as you can also do send as in Gmail as well.
"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett
October 17, 2020 at 7:00 pm #62661OK, looking at this the Mailplus server can’t do it, it’s the role of the mail client, so the Synology is out.
There are posts out there using Fetchmail to feed Mailplus. They look convoluted.
I’d stick with using an email client.
October 17, 2020 at 7:41 pm #62665OK, looking at this the Mailplus server can’t do it, it’s the role of the mail client, so the Synology is out. There are posts out there using Fetchmail to feed Mailplus. They look convoluted. I’d stick with using an email client.
That seems the least painful option as least error prone :good:
"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett
October 17, 2020 at 8:15 pm #62667Thanks Drezha – probably this explains why I have never seen maildir!
October 18, 2020 at 12:15 pm #62681Thanks Drezha – probably this explains why I have never seen maildir! link
It seems that Thunderbird doesn’t support Maildir out of the box – link. However, I recall when I upgraded to Version 6 of Postbox, they switched it to Maildir – IO couldn’t see it on their site, but a Google brought this up.
Not sure if it’s more stable now – that was a few years ago.
"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett
October 18, 2020 at 4:46 pm #62685It appears you could do what you want with Outlook and an MS Mail account.
The Outlook client can be setup to receive new mail notifications and then automatically download new mail. You can then have Outlook forward mail to your own local mail server (may require a script).
Only works with MS accounts like Outlook or Hotmail though.
October 18, 2020 at 5:21 pm #62689Come to think of it, if you have Office 365 you can probably use Mail sync to do what you want, it can sync on a schedule or via push notifications.
October 18, 2020 at 6:51 pm #62691We seem to be getting lost, my fault for rambling on at the start.
The issue is really one of archiving and replicating the likes of Ionos’s archiving service. I think there is a similar service in 365 for Business, but this is a DIY project.
Having a Synology server and therefore a mail server app, Drezha was hoping that could be pressed into use. Makes sense, no need for more hardware and it’s on 24/7. But sadly it can’t bring in third party mail, plus mail servers are a total PITA.
Hence the idea of an email client setup to do only that (never used for email tasks) and keeping IMAP out of it so that any deletions aren’t replicated. Thunderbird seems ideal being cross platform and with plenty of tools but there are others out there.
Going back to the Synology, I’ve had a look at some CLI email clients that could be run in a very basic Linux VM (the models Drezha and I own have enough power to handle low power VMs. My PiHole runs on one).
No way would you want to use them for every day email tasks but a possible solution for archiving, especially as search is a big thing with all of them. I don’t know how (or if) they handle attachments though.
October 18, 2020 at 8:39 pm #62693Dave’s hit the nail on the head – it’s more for the archiving than day to day use.
I’ve switched from Fastmail to my Mythic Beasts hosting today – mails switched via Thunderbird today. I over estimated my storage, as I’m using 1023.98 MB / 5.00 GB of my Mythic Beasts storage now, so I’ve got some headroom and if needed, I can auto archive some emails to local folders and get them off the server. Backups of the Maildir/Mbox on to the Synology will be the way forward – versioned via Hyper Backup, this will allow me to go back if needed.
Interestingly, Roundcube and the MB servers are far quicker than when I used iCloud and iCloud sync on my iOS devices! So I’ll have saved myself some money by looks by getting rid of Fastmail at renewal.
"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett
October 26, 2020 at 2:39 pm #63012 -
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