this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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Selfhosted

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Email ownership, I give up. (lemmy.today)
submitted 1 month ago by altphoto@lemmy.today to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I give up.

I tried left and right to try to install an email server so I could degoogle my life.

But therechnical barrier is thick and Google keeps adding more to it. Forget it. I can't even get thru the installation process much less trying to get my shit off Google.

I figure, I don't actually have any need for my email addresses. Just like my phone number. I never call anyone. I'm going to discourage my kids from using email at all. I'll remind everyone I know that I don't use email at every opportunity I get just like I remind people to not call me and that my phone number is not available.

Between spammers and Google, I just don't need this headache in my life. My mom is much less technically savvy than the average pet. So Google will just siphon her data and when the megabits are full then you just delete the old stuff.

You don't need it. No one will spend their life reading your emails when you're gone or watching your videos or listening to your recordings or viewing your photos. There's no need to worry about just deleting the pile of shit you've accumulated. I'm this done.

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[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I also use mxroute. I paid for ten years at once. I only needed it because I wanted a catch-all and my previous hosting provider stopped allowing that.

My email solution for decades has been to have a mailbox separate from my email domain. Currently it’s FastMail. I then give out a different entity@example.com to each entity that needs my email address. I can then shut off (route to null) any address that starts getting spam.

I did order Run Your Own Mail Server because one day I’d like to try.

From the Kickstarter:

Running a mail server is an advanced systems administration skill, though. Mind tricks are not enough. You need to be able to operate a Unix-like operating system, understand logging and TLS, make DNS changes and adjust packet filters. RYOMS takes you through the protocol, configuring Postfix and Dovecot, and the DKIM and SPF and DMARC authentication protocols. (They’re not proper authentication protocols, but that’s what the Empire calls them.) It covers anti-spam measures, mail filters, and virtual domains, all at the command line and with pretty web interfaces. While the reference platforms are Debian and FreeBSD, the Postfix and Dovecot servers and assorted infrastructure work on any open source Unix.

This book does not contain absolutely everything you might ever need to understand running a mail server. Every environment has its oddities. But it does contain the core knowledge that every mail administrator must have. A sysadmin with this orientation can sort out their edges easily enough. Coping with edges is what we do.