Hello and greetings! I’m looking to set up email for my business and have decided to go with Mail-in-a-Box.
First, is this a good choice? Currently, I have just one business email, and it’s registered with Zoho.
Can I maintain both services for my business emails, or is it better to stick with just one? If I switch entirely to Mail-in-a-Box, how do I configure the nameservers, as my domain is already registered with GoDaddy?
Before going any further let me ask you the following questions:
Do you have a website for your business using the same domain name as your email?
If yes, where is your domain’s DNS hosted?
There is no sense at all in maintaining 2 mail services as you can only receive email for the domain at one or the other. So I would say to dump Zoho, unless you intend to archive old mail there, rather than migrating it to MiaB. Even then I would dump Zoho. 
Whether MiaB is a good choice depends upon your reasons to self-host email. Care to share your thoughts?
Yes have website drugvigil (Sorry i can’t leave url here as i am a new user)
My Hosting provider is Godaddy.
So i can archive all the mails from Zoho. I do just export it.
Here are few more questions:
So you didn’t answer this question, but regardless …
Mail-in-a-Box is designed so that inexperienced people can host email and even a simple website all in one place. In your use case, you do not need all of that as you already have an established web site which may be a bit beyond “simple” as MiaB defines it. So you’ll want to keep hosting your web site where ever it is already being hosted, most likely.
There are two different ways to set up your DNS services. MiaB is engineered to handle DNS for you, so you could allow MiaB to handle DNS for your domain, OR you can continue to handle DNS at your registrar as you are currently doing. MiaB is very flexible in this regard. How you set your name servers is dependent upon this choice.
Now regarding your other questions:
Yes, absolutely as MiaB fully supports the major modern email standards of IMAP/SMTP/POP3. So you can literally use any mainstream email client.
Maintenance. You’ll need to routinely perform maintenance on your MiaB server. It is not much, mind you, but it is still another task that you should plan to spend a few minutes on every month.
Delivery reliability. Many VPS providers have low reputations for allowing spam from their network, so it may be a bit difficult finding the right one. Many providers also simply do not allow their servers to be used for email servers. Both of these issues can be solved with a SMTP relay though.
Cost. Hosting MiaB can cost from $4 to $10 a month.
I believe that it is 1GB ram and 1 core. The docs say (or used to say) less but Ubuntu, the required OS has become more bloated and will not install on a VPS with less than 1GB ram. I recommend at least 15gb storage though many use less. No less than 10gb though.
Now, back to the unanswered question:
If you are looking for privacy, MiaB is an excellent choice as generally only you would have access to your data. The downsides are cost which is minimal and the time and energy needed to maintain the installation, which again are minimal but are still a factor.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
I plan to host Mail-in-a-Box (MIAB) on a Linode server with 1 GB RAM and 1 CPU core, as you suggested. How many email accounts can this configuration manage effectively? Additionally, I’d like to gain some clarity on the setup process before proceeding.
I prefer Ubuntu or Debian.
Not wanting to be rude, but have you read the setup guide? https://mailinabox.email/guide.htm
The guide describes the setup process and requirements in great detail, and I wouldn’t know where to start to explain it better or differently, so I guess we need some more specific questions from you, like what information do you miss in the guide, or what parts of the guide do you need more explanation on?
https://mailinabox.email/guide.html#machine
You must choose the
Ubuntu 22.04 x64 (server edition)operating system and a machine with at least 512 MB of RAM
Okay i will read the document. But i don’t find any document with the above link you provided.
“Can I assume that Maib should be configured only with Ubuntu? from your answers”
The first link will take you to the setup guide, which I recommend you read from top to bottom, and the second link will take you to the specific chapter in the setup guide where it says “You must choose the `Ubuntu 22.04 x64 (Server Edition)'”.
Yes. Specifically Ubuntu 22.04 and only that version.
I can view the 2nd link you provided and the first one has 404 error. Anyhow thanks.
In theory 100’s if all clients are using desktop/mobile clients to access their email rather than the included webmail.
The actual use case matters a lot. I have one installation that is used by 30-40 users with low volumes of email, and have no complaints. Where you’re really going to notice problems is if you want to try sending large volumes of email such as a marketing newsletter, etc. Don’t. “Large volume” is defined as 1000’s of emails an hour.
I have a use case for my business activities. Currently we are not more than 10. If i install Miab with 1 GB of RAM can i manage these resources efficiently. Since you ask about newsletters. Yes i do it weekly not more than 1000 mails in total and also that is not bulk. I will do as batches in certain intervals. So total it comes around 1000 emails.
You should be fine.
As I said, don’t. You really should use a service that is designed for this use to send the newsletters. Services such as Brevo, Mailgun, Mailjet, etc.
Let me ask more about these weekly newsletters. Are you currently sending them now? Do you carefully remove any bounces from your recipient list? Is the list double opt-in?
It is not that MiaB cannot handle this, but rather it is an issue of your self hosting email and needing to navigate email delivery. It is always a best practice to keep your day to day communications and marketing separate.
Yes, I am carefully removing undelivered or unrealistic emails from the list, filtering them one by one. Currently, I’m using Zoho Mail with IMAP integration in Thunderbird. There are a few bounces, and I’m deleting those from the list as well.
Okay i will check with that.
Doubt: Are the service providers you mentioned above; are they foss?
No, they are all commercial, for profit businesses.
So you are doing this entirely manually? I really suggest using a newsletter management/mailing list software. There are several available. I have experience with Mailtrain, but there are other options available. And yes, these mailing list management software’s I am mentioning are all FOSS.
I am going to very highly recommend that you use a SMTP relay for your outbound emails. Several years ago, I created one to solve delivery issues facing this community which I still maintain.
I will look in to it.