Choosing eMail Server Software For Win10?

[PinkFloydEffect]

Hello everyone, I am new to playing with mail servers but I need it in order to have en email for my business.

I purchased a domain name, and it offers email forwarding but that is not want I need....I need to be able to respond from the domains email (subdomain?) so I was told I need a mail server.

I am sure there are services you can pay for, but for now I already have a PC based NAS on my network that runs 24/7 with plenty of extra resources.

I have found what I believe are the top 4:
-hMail Server
-Mail Enable
-Zimbra
-Apache James

All 4 seem to be either open source or offer a free version that should cover my needs. I need it to be able to interface with Outlook/Thunderbird/etc.

Of the 4 the ones recommended to me by a friend was MailEnable, due to its ease of setup. I just want to make sure this is the solution for me and that I am not leaving anything on the table I could utilize by taking the easy route.

One last question about this is what happens if my NAS machine is down for an hour and someone happens to send me an email at that time? Will I receive it when my server comes back up the way SMS with cell phones do or will it send a return message to the sender? (which will look bad).

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[coxhaus]

If your mail server is down there will not be a problem. Mail will catch up when your server comes up. I ran a mail server Microsoft Exchange for 10 years at my house. The hardest thing was to sync the iPhones to the mail server.

Now days spammers are very good. You need to have mail server protection otherwise you will end up on a blacklist and mail will be blocked until you can clear yourself. It will be a lot of trouble.

I ran Untangle for mail protection for most of those years. It is the best I know which is affordable for home use. Don't run without it.

Nowadays I would recommend against running a mail server. Buy an account somewhere.

 

[PinkFloydEffect]

Thank you, I did not realize you needed a mail server "firewall" in a sense. I wonder if any of the 4 programs on this list have this feature included?

 

[RMerlin]

Personally I go with Kerio Connect for my customers who want on-site mail server without the insane costs associated with Microsoft Exchange. It has full Activesync support, meaning you can connect to it with any client that supports that protocol (including iOS and Android devices).

One last question about this is what happens if my NAS machine is down for an hour and someone happens to send me an email at that time?

Depends on the sender's MTA. Most servers that play nice will keep retrying for 5 days before issuing a fatal bounce back (with typically a warning after the first four hours). Some ISPs however will drop that queue life time to 1 day max.

 

[RMerlin]

For mail filtering, a well configured SpamAssassin still does a pretty decent job if going with an open sourced solution. You can also buy professional spam filtering if needed. There's a local company called Zerospam that's very popular around here. Lastspam is another well-regarded provider.

 

[PinkFloydEffect]

Users on other forums are really pushing me toward G Suite or O365 if I am going to put any money into this, for both startup and maintenance costs. I suppose focusing on my business and not weeding through spam for a client or worrying about failed messages is more important right now.

 

[coxhaus]

I agree. Good luck.

 

[PinkFloydEffect]

This is slightly off topic, but this mail server experience is embracing my choices now that impact my careers future. All the hardware is going centralized now that networks are so fast and wide spread, and the hardware is what I loved so much growing up. I am now in my late 20s and watching everything change over the last 10-15 years is making me think job stability is in networks and communications...not the end user and potentially not even in the management of a small businesses technology. If I want to work with hardware, now is the time to get experience in a data center of some sort but of course even that will end up requiring relocation which I am not willing to do. I live within an hour of Tampa FL so that is the best I can do in hopes of working with hardware or in a data center.

 

[coxhaus]

You can't throw a mail server together like in the old days. Mail takes sophistication now days with lots of expertise. It is much more difficult requiring a lot of time. So it depends if you want to become a mail administrator or just have secure email. If you try don't start without reverse name lookup or you will be shunned from some of the big email guys. You need a good spam filter. Then you need to keep up with all the different small mail devices.

 

[PinkFloydEffect]

You can't throw a mail server together like in the old days. Mail takes sophistication now days with lots of expertise. It is much more difficult requiring a lot of time. So it depends if you want to become a mail administrator or just have secure email. If you try don't start without reverse name lookup or you will be shunned from some of the big email guys. You need a good spam filter. Then you need to keep up with all the different small mail devices.

Your not kidding, I am totally not up to running an email server at this point. Looks like it would cost me about $100 a year for mail service from some of the big names. I did find some alternatives for free such as ZOHO but I am not sure how good they are. To pay for O365 just to use it for 1 email address seems a bit steep when I have Office 2016 already. It does appear however that Office 365 for Business offers a plan for $5/month and this includes business email but no apps. This may sound novice but I thought this could potentially be as simple as leaving Outlook open on my NAS, which seems to have good spam filtering/rules...took a month or two but it eventually seemed to learn what was spam and is doing a great job now. I used to use Thunderbird, but I forget what the problem was that made me convert to Outlook, whatever it was clearly was a big enough downside or problem after using Thunderbird for so long. It appears that using your own custom domain with Gmail is free, right? If this is the case I could use Gmail for my hosting and just point it to my Outlook desktop app, I have no need to recieve email away from home...and even if I do I can just use a browser to sign into Gmail.

 

[coxhaus]

I use Gmail now and let my Microsoft Windows 10 mail front end it. I am retired and no long pay for office on my laptop.
My wife has office on a desk top if I really need it. I did use Outlook and Gmail together in the past.

 

[hinterfeld]

nice