I self host my own email using mailinabox. Its working like a charm for my personal use case.
If anyone is interested in setting this up by themselves, here is the opentofu (formally terraform) code I am using: https://github.com/JonasTaulien/opentofu-mailinabox
The odds that this works is basically zero. Your post didn't refer to deliverability at all and the repo's README didn't address deliverability either. I can basically guarantee a portion of your email is not being delivered, you just aren't measuring it.
Its true, that I did not refer to deliverability.
But I can do this now :)
Mailinabox has a dahboard that shows you if you are on any spam list. It will also just stop with the setup, if it detects, that the IP of your machine is blacklisted.
The cases where my email got blocked, I always received an email back from the box, so I think there are no cases where my email just disappeared into the dark.
Reasons for blocking where:
- Some strange spamlist blocked my IP. I was able to resolve this by filling out a i-am-not-a-spammer-form on the spamlist provider
- Some email server required from me that I add my personal address to my website, so that they know who maintains the server
Never have I send an email but it was not delivered without notice
> Its true, that I did not refer to deliverability. But I can do this now :) Mailinabox has a dahboard that shows you if you are on any spam list. It will also just stop with the setup, if it detects, that the IP of your machine is blacklisted.
I have never been on a spam list. My IPs have never been on a blacklist. And yet, my mail was often delivered to spam folder (as opposed to inbox) on Outlook and Gmail.
> The cases where my email got blocked, I always received an email back from the box, so I think there are no cases where my email just disappeared into the dark.
In the vast majority of the cases where your email is not delivered to the inbox of the recipient, you will not get any notification. In these cases your mail will usually be silently placed into the spam folder, and sometimes it will be blackholed completely (not even landing in the spam folder).
While you may not have liked the way it was said, this users reply is actually responding with correct information.
While setting up your own mail server is fun, rewarding, and pretty easy, there are serious problems that anyone considers it needs to be made aware of. Over any serious period of time, the odds that not all your mail is getting delivered approaches and equals 100%. It's a sad reality but a true one unfortunately. If you okay with the fact that some percentage of your email will never make it to your destination (and in many cases you won't know that's happening) then it might be for you. Most people are not okay with that for obvious reasons.
I'm calling out harmful misinformation. It makes me incredibly angry that it's 2023 and people are still peddling self-hosted email. That said, you have a point I've been unnecessarily rude in this thread and I should be more civil.
