At our cooperative (TechGenossen) we used Gmail as our Email-Provider at first. But we found Gmail to be too expensive for our many members.

So, we decided to self-host our emails.

Setting up your email server can be quite hard and involves many moving parts. Fortunately, we found Mail-in-a-Box, a fantastic open-source project, which helps you set up a mail server in no time.

Mail-in-a-Box lets you become your mail service provider in a few easy steps. It’s somewhat like making your own Gmail, but one you control from top to bottom.

Technically, Mail-in-a-Box turns a fresh cloud computer into a working mail server. But you don’t need to be a technology expert to set it up.

Source: mailinabox.email

Mail-in-a-Box features an

• IMAP-Server
• An easy to use Control-Panel
• Nextcloud for contacts
• Roundcube for webmail

It is easy to set up on fresh Ubuntu 14.04. machine.

curl -s https://mailinabox.email/setup.sh | sudo bash

The software will guide you through the installation.

All you have to do is change some DNS-Records and voilà — it works out of the box.

As the admin of the server, you regularly receive emails about how to maintain the box.

I am pleased with the mail server and with the project.