Nextcloud, Qbittorrent, Truenas and loads of other svcs take optional email credentials for sending alerts and other features (eg. password recovery for nextcloud).
What email providers do people usually use to make this process simple to set up? For example, Microsoft doesn’t allow basic auth anymore so it’s supposedly not possible to use via most of these setups, and some other services seem like they have a low inbox size (does this matter?)
Email is like, the worst possible option. Check out Apprise. Super easy to setup Telegram or Discord notifications via webhooks. Takes like a minute.
Under things me and my users notice aren’t working right away, at the top of the list is email. So I notice when those alerts aren’t able to get through, because if email is down I have my phone ringing off the hook because my dad can’t get to his online auctions to see if he won that toaster for $5. So email is like, the best option.
smtp_to_telegram
Similar idea, but a different service if you like gotify: https://github.com/tystuyfzand/gotify-smtp
It’s not really that privacy friendly, but I use zoho. You can send emails free from aliases with your own domain name so I have emails coming from nextcloud@mydomain pve@mydomain etc.
Install dovecot and set up your email client to connect to it. Email is trivial if you’re not sending to other hosts.
I’m using smtp gotify , been using it for a while now and it seems OK for alerts and outer features
I’ve been pretty lazy with this.
I used to use my hotmail account, but they disabled password auth for smtp and many programs dont support 0auth2.
With that change, I just moved to using gmail. You’ve gotta create an App Password for smtp, but other wise works fine.
I’ve just been too lazy to move out of gmail+hotmail. Maybe one day
I use gmail. You just have to set up an “app” password. I always have to search for how to do that, but once you have an app password you’re off and running.
I also just started hosting my own nfty and have been moving as much as possible to that. So far I’ve replaced two email notifications with push notifications, which is nice.
You only need SMTP server, so the inbox size doesn’t matter (assuming you have another email where you want to receive those notifications). And even if you have separate inbox for alerts it’s quite unlikely that you get hundreds of megabytes worth of alerts every day and they’re pretty much useless after a day or two so there’s no need to keep them around.
In here ISPs commonly have SMTP service included on their service, so that’s worth checking. Beyond than that, any at least somewhat reputable provider will do as long as they provide traditional SMTP service. One option is to use a relay host on local network which sends mail trough a smart host so you can just use local unauthenticated SMTP server for all the things you run and that one service will then push the messages to the internet.
I moved to Google workspace for email, yes I know it Google.
I have my home IP and dedi IP in the routing settings, then just use SMTP to Google and let them forward to me.
All servers have null mail installed and setup for Google, I also have docker containers with config if needed
PurelyMail is what I use. It’s been great so far. I’ve been using it for over a year for this exact use case.
They rock.I’m sometimes afraid they will be bought or change terms.
Given it seems to be a single guy doing his thing I don’t expect them to get bought out.
It’s a great service and incredibly cheap. With advanced pricing I’m only paying ~0,40€ per month. My domain + purelymail is less than I’d pay for other providers email only.
Edit: If Amazon increases their prices they’ll have to pass it on, but those should be pretty consistent. If you use your own domain (or an alias service) switching email providers is simple anyway.
Stalwart mail
I use docker-mail-server
I use SMTP2GO (with my own domain) with the free plan (1000 email per month) that’s way over a selfhoster needs.
Self hosted ntfy and mailrise. Mailrise is a wrapper for apprise that let’s you send emails to it and in turn converts the email to the desired push alert.
For password resets or account creation welcome emails I’d use a SMTP service. I use SMTP2GO for those. Free plan is something 1000 emails a month. I’ve been using them for a year and think I’ve sent maybe 5 or 10 emails.









