Examples of using Sieve in Dovecot to filter incoming emails?

[DavidF]

Hello MIAB Community,

I apologize, but I am a Noob. I’m just trying to get up the nerve and ability to get my own email-server up & running. I tried it in the past 4 or 5 years ago – and it just overtly complicated and had too many places where the novice would run into error messages that were not understandable, so I admit that I failed some years back. So, I just hosted a domain at BlueHost (just for email only – no webpages, nothing) which allowed me to do what I needed. But, their costs keep going up, and they have downtime and had a crash – which lost a lot of my prior emails. So, I’ve got to do it myself, I guess.

Can anyone tell me if this would be possible and/or hard with MIAB? My problem / need is very, very simple I think. Okay, I have a domain that is only used to catch my emails. So, I need a way to filter incoming emails and forward them to separate email accounts that are based upon purpose.

For instance, I look to cook in my spare time. So, at BlueHost, I have a separate email user on my domain, named “Cooking”. Then, I forward all of my Cooking emails to that domain, using a filter that I wrote with the filtering editor. Works really well. I just search for “FoodNetwork” in the “From” field, and then I forward it to “Cooking@MyDomain”.

How hard is it to do this in MAIB? Also, is there a webpage that makes Filtering (like the above) easy. I’ve read about Sieve / Dovecot, and I understand how to program. And, yes, I am willing to “get dirty” and write Sieve filters, but it’d be nice if MIAB just had a simple webpage something like this to help write quick filters …

How to Create cPanel Email Filters

Also, if I commit to MIAB, I hope that there is a webpage to step someone new through how to setup simple filters (just like above page has) if it writing it in Sieve (like the below) …

Also, I thank the Community for working on MIAB. There has to be something simple and easy to handle personal email for the “average” person like me. I use Gmail and forward it, but I really want to make it simple, easy, and have my own VM / server for it.

Okay, thanks for your time,
David

[alento]

Hi David, @DavidF

Mail-in-a-Box uses Roundcube webmail. Roundcube has sieve filtering built in, so no need to get your hands dirty.

MiaB would work well for your purpose I think. Though it would not be the recommended method, you can create a catch-all account for your domain, and then have those emails filtered and forwarded to the accounts you reallly want them to be in … or even to different folders within the same email account.

The recommended method would be to have mailboxes for cooking@ and basketweaving@ and astronomy@ to which your various senders would send directly based on purpose … but yes, the other way will work as well.

I feel for you being on Bluehost … they are an EIG owned hosting company, so yes … run! fast! get away from that horrible service.

Mail-in-a-Box is usually rather easy to set up, though sometimes things happen. But the community here can help you sort through any issues, often in real-time if you visit our Slack channel.

And if you really don’t want to run your own mail server, but feel that you have no choice to do so … I can recommend you to a good solid service that will do everything you want and more. For probably less than you are paying for Bluehost, and about, or not much more than you’ll pay for the VPS.

[daveteu]

A easy method that I’ve been using for many many years is to use the + feature for email.

When you sign up for cooking class, use username+cookieclass@domain.com, when you use it to subscribe to some mailing list, use username+thedomainofmailinglist@domain.com.

The emails will all be sent to username@domain.com (which you can filter into folders), and at the same time you can track who has been selling your email address.