Webmail server with multiple mail accounts

FQQD@lemmy.ohaa.xyz to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 20 points –

I like using thunderbird to have all my emails in the same place, in a unified inbox. This doesn't allow me to access my inbox on my phone etc though, so I'm looking for a FOSS way to solve this problem.

My idea would be to selfhost a website, like a webmail site, that has the functionality of connecting to different mail servers and unifying the inbox to get all my mail in the same place. Should be accessible by android phones and iPads.

Is there a better way to do this? Maybe with nextcloud? If anyone has an idea, let me know.

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K-9 mail app on android has a unified inbox. This is a FOSS app and part of thunderbird now.

Maybe a bit patience will do, since Thunderbird is planning to...

a) make an iOS app b) add support for sync to you can sync your settings and account conifgurations between devices

I don't know of any good solution that works right now however. :-/

Hmm sounds like a Webmail client, like Roundcube. Luckily (at least from my point of view) it has no 'unified inbox', but you can have as many mail accounts you want, with one login, from different vendors. You can selhost it easily. I use it on a Raspberry Pi with one login and have then access to gmail, yahoo and some other accounts.

To mimic a 'unified inbox' you can forward all the different accounts, to one 'major' account, so that you receive every mail in this inbox. Than you can create a 'sending alias', to answer the incoming mails with the proper SMTP service. Nothing easier than that with Roundcube.

That sounds good too. Thinking about it, I dont necessarily need a unified inbox, it's just makes my life easier. Thank you.

you could set up email accounts as forwarders to a single account. And on the email client add these accounts as aliases so you can reply with them. So you get a single unified view of emails as well as ability to reply with the one you want.

I am... Confused about your request. Why can't you also have the same on your phone? Are you still using popmail? Sounds like simply setting your accounts to IMAP should solve your problem.

Unless his email server doesn't support IMAP :-(

I mainly want to be able to view them on my iPad. I can only use the web browser and not install apps on there.

I do that with p≡p mail. Unified inboxes work like a charm, plus other nice features.

https://pep.software/

Never mind. Sorry for the post. My brain seems to ignore anything that's remotely attached to Apple and I completely missed the iOS part.

I'd suggest trying FairEmail on your phone, https://email.faircode.eu/, before trying to set up an email server.

I would ask if you have good knowledge of IMAP. That allows access to a unified inbox from several devices and you don't have to own the server. It is far preferable to webmail for me.

I host my own email server and use many devices all over IMAP. If you need a server, nixos-mailserver is my recommendation. You could then try Roundcube on top but I bet you will use IMAP instead before you get there.

Websites do not have the functionality to connect to mail servers. These are different protocols.

For mail server infrastructure, Stalwart is said to be pretty good. I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

This doesn't make sense.

A website is basically just the responses a server sends to a browser. That server has any functionality you want it to.

A website is the response a web server sends on a web port to a web browser. SMTP on port 80/443 won’t work well, but please try.

You understand that computers can use more than one port?

There's nothing abnormal about what he's requesting.

You understand that web servers (listening on a web server port) and mail servers (listening on one or more mail server ports, possibly on the same computer) are entirely different technologies?

They're just protocols. There's nothing preventing a program from interacting with both. Webmail isn't some mystical art no one's ever thought of before.

Again, I’m talking about the server part here, and there is a lot preventing a server to be both a web and a mail server.

It's just a computer (or program, depending on context). It can do whatever you want it to.

If I want to write/modify a mail server that watches video feeds from 6 different beaches and only bothers accepting mail when beaches 2, 3 and 5 are empty and beaches 1, 4, and 6 have 500 people, nothing is stopping me. It's stupid and a waste of time, but it's a computer. It can run arbitrary code.

That's ignoring that if you read what he wants, it would be a client to the actual recipient mail server and only needs to actually serve the web interface so that he can access his email from various browsers.

Doesn't look like "a lot" to me. 15 years and going strong. The first page of google results for "how to set up a mail server" all include webmail, which would be both a web and a mail server.

Stalwart looks neat, thanks for mentioning it. 🐧

If you try it, report back. ;-) My current setup is mostly OpenSMTPD & Dovecot, but I'm open for good reasons to move away.

okay :) I find it interesting because :

  • Build in Rust

  • Supports several databases like rocksdb, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite

  • Seems to support connecting to your current logins setup e.g. LDAP or MySQL db

  • Got funding via NLnet

  • Supports JMAP

  • Does not seem to require Docker (which means for me some flexibility network config wise to run it on an existing server where non Docker based services are running).

  • Encryption at Rest enabled or disabled by user.

Especially the JMAP part I am curious about. I hope to toy with this every now and then, and then report back :)

JMAP sounds interesting indeed, but as far as I understand, there is an underwhelming number of clients that speak it?

Ah, yes, you're right, cheers for that, but I am interested to compare JMAP speed and options with IMAP. And to test Stalwart I would not mind using the first and the last three in that Clients list.

Tested Stalwart, the all in one option with both JMAP and IMAP. Looks fairlygood, works fine with IMAP and SMTP, but making it work with JMAP clients took me some time. This page helped for the F-Droid client lrr.rs. With Cypth it was a no go. SnappyMail webmail software is not mentioned on the JMAP clients page at all but it is with development 1/2 done with JMAP implementation. In a few months time Stalwart is expected to have a web interface for admins. Looking forward to testing again when that is available.

Of course. I want to have a webmail websever. It's an interface for viewing and writing mails with the backend doing the mailserver connection.