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I'm already self hosting an e-mail server with no problems in deliverability or receiving. No limitations on aliases. No more artificial limits. Cyrus-imap + p

by xyst 2y ago

I'm already self hosting an e-mail server with no problems in deliverability or receiving. No limitations on aliases. No more artificial limits. Cyrus-imap + postfix. If I need to scale up, can migrate from sqlite to postgres.

itslennysfault 2y ago
I did this for about a decade (ending about a decade ago), and eventually gave up and went to gmail. I agree that it is a really easy thing to do and maintain, BUT when it did (rarely) break it was always at the worst possible time. The day a client was sending an important document. While I was on vacation. Etc. I probably only had to drop everything to fix my email server a handful of times, but that handful of times was painful enough to make me just let google worry about it.
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  I currently use google but am thinking seriously about self hosting. For those few times could the clients send it to you via WhatsApp?
  - mynameisvlad 2y ago
    “Please send me that critical requirements document over WhatsApp, my email isn’t working” is a terrible thing to hear from a vendor/partner/etc.
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      I do a fair amount of business internationally and WhatsApp is increasingly becoming a default. There is Signal, Slack, Telegram, iMessage, etc plus a multitude of many other options including uploading via our website. Places like Japan and Germany are still pretty big on faxes so I guess it depends where on the continuum the customers are. Thus far our only email issues have been on the client side and they're the ones asking to send it via WhatsApp. It would make sense to me to have a non-email contingency for email.
      - mynameisvlad 2y ago
        That might work for small businesses, but no real mid-sized or bigger company is going to be using Whatsapp or any other consumer messaging service for their critical or non-critical business communications. It just screams unprofessional. You’re not going to see Meta employees do business over WhatsApp, and it’s their product. Like, sure, you could probably get away with it. Once at most places. And even then, it would still likely leave a sour taste in your client’s mouth if their new vendor couldn’t even get their shit together to keep their email up and running smoothly.
        cjbgkagh 2y ago
        Again, I think that view is US centric. Many other countries have WhatsApp as the default. I'm not even suggesting that they should have WhatsApp as the default, just describing the reality as I am seeing it. And yes even the biggest companies and government entities are using WhatsApp. When I was traveling through LATAM they were taking pictures of passports on their phones and sent off for checking via WhatsApp - a US passenger freaked out over it and I had to explain to her that this is just how it's done in LATAM.
        mynameisvlad 2y ago
        > I was traveling through LATAM they were taking pictures of passports on their phones and sent off for checking via WhatsApp - a US passenger freaked out over it and I had to explain to her that this is just how it's done in LATAM. You had a mid-sized to corporate business sending passports over WhatsApp? I highly doubt that. This is not even coming from a “US-centric” view. This is coming from a “that will never pass any sort of compliance or hell corporate governance” sniff test.
        cjbgkagh 2y ago
        I am describing reality as I see it, at this point you're basically calling me a liar. You could have simply googled it yourself; e.g. "is it normal to use WhatsApp for business in Latin America?" to which the resulting summary is "Across LATAM, WhatsApp is used by citizens as a way to communicate with family and friends and is being increasingly used by businesses big and small to provide customer service, make sales, take bookings, and more." Note the --> big <-- part of that. You don't need to rely on my assertions the when there is so much evidence readily available. I have no idea why you're arguing with me and do not care that you don't believe me - what on earth would I have to gain by lying to you in this way. It makes no sense.
  - itslennysfault 2y ago
    The problem with an email server being down is the email goes nowhere. So, the client sends you an email and you just never receive it. Often you don't even know you missed something. It's far from ideal. To answer your question, no I've never corresponded with a client via WhatsApp
- iamdamian 2y ago
  Do you happen to remember what the handful of issues were? In particular, I’m wondering how much a self hoster can expect to have this sort of downtime because of breaking changes to the mail server application(s) vs. misc. server outages (e.g., breaking OS upgrade unrelated to the mail server) vs. having to fix “my mail was marked as spam” problems.
  - itslennysfault 2y ago
    I don't remember the specifics, but it was catastrophic failures. Like I couldn't receive any emails, and because of the nature of email that means you just don't receive them at all ever.
2Gkashmiri 2y ago
Over 3 years running mailinabox. Zero problems after first month of hiccups. Installed a second server last year. That had 0 problems since day 1. I feel like people overblow the whole email thing. Want you to pay for tuta et al when you can build your own and manage it. I havent updated both servers in a year. Zero problems. Again, people maybe confuse miab and other email servers maintenance with maintaining nextcloud which is a real pita
- gravitronic 2y ago
  When you send a cold email (initiating a thread or first email to someone) does it land in the recipients inbox or spam? This was what eventually broke my self hosting plan.. too many emails sent and never received.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    And the worst part is this stuff is damn near undetectable. Maybe my buddy hasn't responded because he's got a lot going on at work at the moment. Or maybe my DKIM/DMARC records aren't playing well with his mail forwarder. Pretty difficult for me to tell - I'm not in the habit of phoning someone to tell them I sent them an e-mail.
  - 2Gkashmiri 2y ago
    Nope. Not in the last 2 years. Hotmail in the first days and gmail now if you send a dozen emails at once but not otherwise
- tracker1 2y ago
  Similar here, but mailu (docker-compose) setup... which works very well, aside from deliverability issues to some outlook.com domains. Gmail, and most others (even other MS domains) deliver fine.
wredue 2y ago
My ISP blacklisted my mail server within a couple weeks. I am not even particularly active in email. Heck, the company I work for gave up trying to host our own email blasts to customers as we were fighting with different places around the world *constantly* (we had a dedicated position just for dealing with this shit, and they were becoming overwhelmed).

by xyst 2y ago

itslennysfault 2y ago

I did this for about a decade (ending about a decade ago), and eventually gave up and went to gmail. I agree that it is a really easy thing to do and maintain, BUT when it did (rarely) break it was always at the worst possible time. The day a client was sending an important document. While I was on vacation. Etc. I probably only had to drop everything to fix my email server a handful of times, but that handful of times was painful enough to make me just let google worry about it.

cjbgkagh 2y ago
I currently use google but am thinking seriously about self hosting. For those few times could the clients send it to you via WhatsApp?
- mynameisvlad 2y ago
  “Please send me that critical requirements document over WhatsApp, my email isn’t working” is a terrible thing to hear from a vendor/partner/etc.
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    I do a fair amount of business internationally and WhatsApp is increasingly becoming a default. There is Signal, Slack, Telegram, iMessage, etc plus a multitude of many other options including uploading via our website. Places like Japan and Germany are still pretty big on faxes so I guess it depends where on the continuum the customers are. Thus far our only email issues have been on the client side and they're the ones asking to send it via WhatsApp. It would make sense to me to have a non-email contingency for email.
    - mynameisvlad 2y ago
      That might work for small businesses, but no real mid-sized or bigger company is going to be using Whatsapp or any other consumer messaging service for their critical or non-critical business communications. It just screams unprofessional. You’re not going to see Meta employees do business over WhatsApp, and it’s their product. Like, sure, you could probably get away with it. Once at most places. And even then, it would still likely leave a sour taste in your client’s mouth if their new vendor couldn’t even get their shit together to keep their email up and running smoothly.
      - cjbgkagh 2y ago
        Again, I think that view is US centric. Many other countries have WhatsApp as the default. I'm not even suggesting that they should have WhatsApp as the default, just describing the reality as I am seeing it. And yes even the biggest companies and government entities are using WhatsApp. When I was traveling through LATAM they were taking pictures of passports on their phones and sent off for checking via WhatsApp - a US passenger freaked out over it and I had to explain to her that this is just how it's done in LATAM.
        mynameisvlad 2y ago
        > I was traveling through LATAM they were taking pictures of passports on their phones and sent off for checking via WhatsApp - a US passenger freaked out over it and I had to explain to her that this is just how it's done in LATAM. You had a mid-sized to corporate business sending passports over WhatsApp? I highly doubt that. This is not even coming from a “US-centric” view. This is coming from a “that will never pass any sort of compliance or hell corporate governance” sniff test.
        cjbgkagh 2y ago
        I am describing reality as I see it, at this point you're basically calling me a liar. You could have simply googled it yourself; e.g. "is it normal to use WhatsApp for business in Latin America?" to which the resulting summary is "Across LATAM, WhatsApp is used by citizens as a way to communicate with family and friends and is being increasingly used by businesses big and small to provide customer service, make sales, take bookings, and more." Note the --> big <-- part of that. You don't need to rely on my assertions the when there is so much evidence readily available. I have no idea why you're arguing with me and do not care that you don't believe me - what on earth would I have to gain by lying to you in this way. It makes no sense.
- itslennysfault 2y ago
  The problem with an email server being down is the email goes nowhere. So, the client sends you an email and you just never receive it. Often you don't even know you missed something. It's far from ideal. To answer your question, no I've never corresponded with a client via WhatsApp
iamdamian 2y ago
Do you happen to remember what the handful of issues were? In particular, I’m wondering how much a self hoster can expect to have this sort of downtime because of breaking changes to the mail server application(s) vs. misc. server outages (e.g., breaking OS upgrade unrelated to the mail server) vs. having to fix “my mail was marked as spam” problems.
- itslennysfault 2y ago
  I don't remember the specifics, but it was catastrophic failures. Like I couldn't receive any emails, and because of the nature of email that means you just don't receive them at all ever.

2Gkashmiri 2y ago

Over 3 years running mailinabox. Zero problems after first month of hiccups. Installed a second server last year. That had 0 problems since day 1. I feel like people overblow the whole email thing. Want you to pay for tuta et al when you can build your own and manage it. I havent updated both servers in a year. Zero problems. Again, people maybe confuse miab and other email servers maintenance with maintaining nextcloud which is a real pita

gravitronic 2y ago
When you send a cold email (initiating a thread or first email to someone) does it land in the recipients inbox or spam? This was what eventually broke my self hosting plan.. too many emails sent and never received.
- michaelt 2y ago
  And the worst part is this stuff is damn near undetectable. Maybe my buddy hasn't responded because he's got a lot going on at work at the moment. Or maybe my DKIM/DMARC records aren't playing well with his mail forwarder. Pretty difficult for me to tell - I'm not in the habit of phoning someone to tell them I sent them an e-mail.
- 2Gkashmiri 2y ago
  Nope. Not in the last 2 years. Hotmail in the first days and gmail now if you send a dozen emails at once but not otherwise
tracker1 2y ago
Similar here, but mailu (docker-compose) setup... which works very well, aside from deliverability issues to some outlook.com domains. Gmail, and most others (even other MS domains) deliver fine.

wredue 2y ago

My ISP blacklisted my mail server within a couple weeks. I am not even particularly active in email. Heck, the company I work for gave up trying to host our own email blasts to customers as we were fighting with different places around the world *constantly* (we had a dedicated position just for dealing with this shit, and they were becoming overwhelmed).