All this new excitement with Lemmy and federation has got me thinking that maybe I should learn to run my own instance. What always comes up though is how email is the orginal federated technology.

I am looking at proxmox and see that is has a built in email server, so now I am wondering if it is time to role my own.

I stopped using gmail a long time ago, and right now I use ProtonMail, but I am super frustrated with the dumb limitation of only having a single account for the app. I get why they do it, and I am willing to pay, but it is pricey and I don’t know if that is my best option. I guess it is worth it since ProtonVPN is included. It looks like they are expanding their suite.

Is it worth it? Can I make it secure? Is it stupid to run it off a local computer on my home network?

  • I used to run an OpenBSD mailserver for my personal email address for a few years. It wasn’t that difficult to setup, more tedious and annoying than anything. I stopped doing it when I started searching for a job as I was too paranoid about my emails getting rejected without me knowing about it. I don’t send many emails, but when I do send them I want to know they are getting to where they need to go. I know I was never blocked by gmail, but I couldn’t be sure about other providers.

    Now I just use my domain name as a catchall on mailbox.org and access it using offlineimap. All my emails are saved and backed up, so switching providers is no problem at all.