Run Your Own Mail Server Funded(mwl.io)
mwl.io
Run Your Own Mail Server Funded
https://mwl.io/archives/23601
17 comments
Will the mail server of MS and Google accept mails send from your own mail server or just block them as spam?
IME you generally don't need to worry about this if you:
- Use DKIM, DMARC, and SPF [0]
- Always send at least a text/plain version of your email
- Don't send from an IP previously used to spam
- Don't send gobs of mostly identical emails
[0]: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/email-security/dmarc-dki...
- Use DKIM, DMARC, and SPF [0]
- Always send at least a text/plain version of your email
- Don't send from an IP previously used to spam
- Don't send gobs of mostly identical emails
[0]: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/email-security/dmarc-dki...
hmm, I've made several attempts at this with postfix with DKIM,DMARC and SPF all correctly configured and validated and big providers will still sometimes flag me as spam.
It sounds nice in theory, in practice I've found it's pretty much impossible to send your own email reliabily.
The cheapest working fix for me is to relay everything through a AWS SES, and magically everything is now accepted. A little frustrating, but that's what the Internet has come to.
It sounds nice in theory, in practice I've found it's pretty much impossible to send your own email reliabily.
The cheapest working fix for me is to relay everything through a AWS SES, and magically everything is now accepted. A little frustrating, but that's what the Internet has come to.
I don't want this to turn into a big support thread, but I'm always surprised by this stuff. It's not like the algorithm has some case for small services like this, like Google's spam detection is heavily based on "you sent lots of messages, they're very very alike, significant numbers of users marked them as spam", because that's the actual spam problem. Source: I've worked on political campaigns. I'm not saying you did anything wrong or incorrectly, just that I'd love to know what was really going on.
Aside from SPF, DMARC and DKIM, there's the concept of "pre-warming" an IP.
Where you gradually send more and more email throughout a few weeks until you have enough good reputation to send your entire volume. This is the part that's outside of normal configuration and takes more time.
In my particular case I was trying to move a system that sends about 5million legitimate emails per month (notifications for a lot of customers) - off of AWS onto a self hosted solution.
We spend about 2k per month just on sending emails and I thought if I spent a few days on it we could save that money.
Unless your IPs have built a reputation it's not going to work. I could gradually migrate volume, monitor the bounce rate, adjust, etc. But that was more work than I could afford to put into that project. I also couldn't risk getting emails sent to spam while I experimented.
https://www.twilio.com/docs/sendgrid/ui/sending-email/warmin...
Where you gradually send more and more email throughout a few weeks until you have enough good reputation to send your entire volume. This is the part that's outside of normal configuration and takes more time.
In my particular case I was trying to move a system that sends about 5million legitimate emails per month (notifications for a lot of customers) - off of AWS onto a self hosted solution.
We spend about 2k per month just on sending emails and I thought if I spent a few days on it we could save that money.
Unless your IPs have built a reputation it's not going to work. I could gradually migrate volume, monitor the bounce rate, adjust, etc. But that was more work than I could afford to put into that project. I also couldn't risk getting emails sent to spam while I experimented.
https://www.twilio.com/docs/sendgrid/ui/sending-email/warmin...
Ah so you were a bulk sender. Yeah that's pretty fraught; AFAIK for Gmail you have to follow their bulk sender guidelines [0], which is a pretty long list of things to do. Not impossible though.
But, again most people aren't sending 5m emails a month. They'll be totally fine setting up their own email server.
[0]: https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126?visit_id=638526753...
But, again most people aren't sending 5m emails a month. They'll be totally fine setting up their own email server.
[0]: https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126?visit_id=638526753...
I had a mail server on a linode for around a year, I tried everything I could to get google to accept my emails and it never did. I only used it as a personal email never did bulk sending. I had to switch to a hosted provider with a custom domain instead because it was such a big headache
>Don't send from an IP previously used to spam
That could be a problem if you don't have a fixed IP
That could be a problem if you don't have a fixed IP
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Congrats! I love supporting underdog causes that have real meaning and impact in the lives of creators and consumers. Reminds me of the Mini Museum story of creator Hans Fex: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hansfex/mini-museum/pos...
Am very curious to see how others do their setups beyond just installing the obvious packages and simple configuration.
I can't wait. MWL's writing style makes reading technical documentation a lot more fun than it has to be.
[deleted]
"
> Pledge $30
> Signed Useless Ebook
> Kickstarter Exclusive!
Every time I run a Kickstarter, some smartass asks me about a signed ebook. That wouldn't be a problem, except my target audience is largely composed of smartasses. For these people, I am offering an epub signed with a dedicated-purpose OpenPGP key. The signature will make the epub unreadable on most ereaders, but it will be signed. As requested. Once the Kickstarter ends, I will destroy the private key.
Extracting a readable epub from the signed file is left as an exercise for the backer.
INCLUDES
- OpenPGP-signed ebook - Less
"
MWL is great. I just kicked in for a signed hardcover since I've been bumming his ebooks off of libgen for a while now. Gotta keep the guy who writes all the funny technical books in the black!