I had a free google workspace for over a decade with a domain I own before it became a paid service, I’m looking at putting it all in my hands ideally using services that cost less than the $15/Month in paying for a handful of accounts.

I’m looking at running a Nextcloud to replace most of the Google services but I still haven’t found an email server replacement. Any ideas/suggestions/links to guides?

Edit: I’m not necessarily looking to host my own email, as I understand it to be a pain, but looking to migrate my current one to somewhere else.

  • ciberjohn@alien.topB
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    11 months ago

    I use cloudflare, the free tier, that includes email associated to your domain. In essence it will route email messages to any domain/address you own to a destination. Say outlook.com or gmail.com free email tier.

  • notdedicated@alien.topB
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    11 months ago

    Got Apple devices? iCloud+ for .99/month gives you the ability to use a custom domain for your mail. Not sure it can get much cheaper.

    Proton mail is a great private hosted for a bit more $

  • vanchaxy@alien.topB
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    11 months ago

    fastmail.com if you want unlimited dynamically created aliases. It’s a very flexible solution in general. I have setup where emails to whatever@mydomain.com automatically create a folder “whatever” and route email in it. Also works with multiple users.

  • tenten8401@alien.topB
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    11 months ago

    I’m so tired of people saying self-hosting email is hard or unreliable. I’ve been using Mailcow for probably 5 years now and I’ve had very little issues ever with it once I fully set it up. I’ve been blacklisted a total of twice and both times were because I hadn’t set up reverse DNS properly.

    Sure, if you just set up your email on a new domain with a $5 VPS it’s going to take a little bit to build up your sender reputation with major email providers, but that’s no reason to just give up completely.

    Email is not new technology, it is not hard to set up and maintain. Mailcow even has a built in tool that checks your DNS records out and tells you what to set everything to and if it’s currently correct or not. It also has Nextcloud helper functionality that lets you authenticate Nextcloud users against Mailcow users with OAuth.

    I host email for all of my family and some automated mailer accounts for my website and I’ve had no issues, it’s probably been the most problem-free service I host.

    +1 for Mailcow, it’s easy to maintain and painless to set up :)

  • marbonmb@alien.topB
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    11 months ago

    Hosting is not that difficult as some comment describe it. But in the same time, check your domain provider services. Mine, for domain + mailboxes cost splaying like 3€/month

  • Chemical-Advisor562@alien.topB
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    11 months ago

    I can really recommend Mailcow, and if you have a Synology NAS, Synology Mail Server. Receiving emails is the easy part. Sending them is the tricky one. If you wish to self host at home, you will need an external provider anyway, like a cheap VPS for its dedicated IP. If you already rely on something external, you may just use an SMTP service, like AWS SES, what is dirt cheap on a home lab level. (I have not paid anything since I started to use them with my weekly 5 email sent.) I can also recommend forwardemail.net for catching emails for a domain or a specific email address and just forward them to any email address. For $3 a month, they offer an SMTP service, too, so you can use them to send emails from your domain.

  • Sky_Linx@alien.topB
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    11 months ago

    I use and recommend Mailu to self host email as it’s a complete solution but is easier to set up and back up than others. I also use and recommend an smtp server to use as relay host so you can avoid deliverability issues that you might likely have by sending emails directly from your server as your ip might be blacklisted, you need to work hard for reputation etc. I avoid all of this by using Zepto Mail to send emails. It ridiculously cheap but deliverability is awesome and emails reach the recipient quickly. It costs only 2.50 bucks per credit and a credit is for a whopping 10k emails and expires in 6 months. So it’s extremely cheap but at the same time reliable.