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rich1812

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 4, 2015
117
5
earth
Does anyone know how to setup mojave as an email server? I am not talking about the mail app as many tutorials mentioned. I mean a server like the one on the in the DNS record. Thanks.
 
macOS (and OS X prior) has always come with Postfix compiled and installed. It is located in /etc/postfix. Postfix is an excellent mail server, one of the best.. As installed on the Mac, it has a basic configuration that will work for basic things. You will need to reconfigure it to suit your own mail server needs. Configuration will be all at the command line with a text editor. The two main files to configure are main.cf and master.cf. Postfix has excellent and extensive documentation on their site.

You will need another program to interface with and download your received mail to your email client, something like dovecot.
 
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Thanks for the reply. I followed this tutorial http://budiirawan.com/install-mail-server-mac-osx/, There are two issues I don't quite understand. .1 is in Mojave, it doesn't allow me to modify any files in/System/Library/LaunchDeamons/
2. It still relies on having to have a Google SMTP. Can I configure an SMTP on the Mac?

I already have a domain, name. mydomain.com and I run a website from the Mac. Eventually, my goal is to have an email like abc@mydomain.com. How do I accomplish that?
 
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You would have to disable SIP temporarily to modify /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.postfix.master.plist. To disable SIP, boot into Recovery Mode, launch Terminal, and issue the command csrutil disable. When finished, boot into Recovery again and do csrutil enable.

Postfix is an SMTP server.
 
You would have to disable SIP temporarily to modify /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.postfix.master.plist. To disable SIP, boot into Recovery Mode, launch Terminal, and issue the command csrutil disable. When finished, boot into Recovery again and do csrutil enable.

Postfix is an SMTP server.

That what I don't understand.
If Postfix is an SMTP server, what do I still need the google account as the link mentioned?
 
Does anyone know how to setup mojave as an email server? I am not talking about the mail app as many tutorials mentioned. I mean a server like the one on the in the DNS record. Thanks.
You should really consider if you should be running your own mail server. Mail sent from home ISP accounts will often be rejected as spam by other mail servers and many ISPs block outgoing SMTP from home accounts because this is a common way spammers work. It's also a non-trivial process to ensure that spammers aren't relaying through your mail server.
 
You should really consider if you should be running your own mail server. Mail sent from home ISP accounts will often be rejected as spam by other mail servers and many ISPs block outgoing SMTP from home accounts because this is a common way spammers work. It's also a non-trivial process to ensure that spammers aren't relaying through your mail server.
You should really consider if you should be running your own mail server. Mail sent from home ISP accounts will often be rejected as spam by other mail servers and many ISPs block outgoing SMTP from home accounts because this is a common way spammers work. It's also a non-trivial process to ensure that spammers aren't relaying through your mail server.

Thanks for the reply, If I don't have an email server and I host my own website on my own server, how can I have an email address with my own domain name such as xyz@myowndomain.com? Thanks.
 
Thanks for the reply, If I don't have an email server and I host my own website on my own server, how can I have an email address with my own domain name such as xyz@myowndomain.com? Thanks.
You can get custom domain email hosting nearly anywhere. Mail does not have to be hosted on the same server or network as your website. Google can even do it for you but the proper solution depends on how many users you need to support.
I am happy to let someone else host both my web and email service. I don't want anything to do with the responsibility of keeping both running all the time.
 
Thanks for the reply, If I don't have an email server and I host my own website on my own server, how can I have an email address with my own domain name such as xyz@myowndomain.com? Thanks.
Sign up for email services with an ISP, like GoDaddy. Set your domain's DNS MX record to point to GoDaddy's incoming mail server, and then you can use the GoDaddy SMTP server to send mail using your own domain name. GoDaddy will let you create an email address on your own domain name, such as rich1812@rich1812.com (just an example).

You set up your email client to use POP or IMAP to fetch mail from GoDaddy's server. You can even set GMail to forward your mail to your domain address, or not.

Note, I just used GoDaddy as an example. Most ISP's who offer email services would work the same way.
 
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