Mail-in-a-Box is a one-click, open-source mail server solution that deploys a complete, secure email infrastructure on a fresh Ubuntu machine, empowering individuals and small organizations to take control of their email privacy and avoid centralized providers.

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🚀 Overview

Mail-in-a-Box addresses the centralization of email services, which has made it hard for individuals to run their own servers amid concerns over surveillance and privacy. It automates the setup of dozens of protocols and best practices needed for a reliable, secure mail server.

It's built for privacy-conscious users, small teams, non-profits, and anyone with a domain name who wants full control over their email without deep sysadmin knowledge.

The project was developed to simplify self-hosting email, promote decentralization of the web, foster innovation and privacy, using automated, auditable configuration scripts.

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✨ Key Features

• Easy one-command installation on Ubuntu 22.04, automatically configuring SMTP (Postfix), IMAP (Dovecot), webmail (Roundcube), contacts/calendars (Nextcloud), and more.
• Comprehensive security and deliverability: SPF/DKIM/DMARC/DNSSEC/DANE/MTA-STS, Let's Encrypt TLS, spam filtering (SpamAssassin/Postgrey), greylisting, and Fail2Ban.
• User-friendly control panel for managing accounts, aliases, DNS, backups (to S3/etc.), monitoring (Munin), with TOTP 2FA and REST API.
• Supports multiple domains/users, static website hosting, client autoconfig, and Exchange ActiveSync (Z-Push).

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🛠 Tech Stack

• Frontend: Roundcube webmail, Nextcloud (contacts/cal), Custom HTML/JS control panel
• Backend: Python management daemon, Shell scripts, Postfix, Dovecot, Nginx, SpamAssassin, Postgrey, NSD4, OpenDKIM, Z-Push
• Database: MariaDB/MySQL (for Roundcube/Nextcloud)
• Auth: Built-in TOTP 2FA
• Hosting: Self-hosted on Ubuntu 22.04 VPS (e.g., DigitalOcean, Linode)

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👥 Who Is This For?

This project is useful for:

• Individuals who want to self-host email for privacy and decentralization
• Small teams and organizations managing their own domains
• Indie makers and non-profits avoiding big email providers

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📸 Screenshots / Demo

• Live demo: https://mailinabox.email (screenshots of webmail/control panel; self-host for full experience)
• GitHub: https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox
• Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzxNb_fcqnA

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🔥 Project Status

• 🟢 Actively building

Last updated: 2026-02-01

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❓ FAQ

Is this project free?

Yes / Open Source (Free to use and modify; costs only for your VPS hosting.)

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Is the source code available?

Yes — https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox

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Can I contribute?

Yes — fork the repo, submit PRs via GitHub, report issues, or discuss on the Discourse forum. See CONTRIBUTING.md and Code of Conduct.

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📬 Contact & Links

• Website: https://mailinabox.email
• GitHub: https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/mailinabox
• Forum: https://discourse.mailinabox.email
• Mastodon: https://fosstodon.org/@MailInABox

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