Roundcube VS Mail-in-a-Box

I have tried several, and liked none of them. I'm currently on Geary, but it's lacking in functionality, and it has things like search results being a bit different upon each of my searches. Starred messages cannot be shown on top. Eyeroll.

I think Evolution and Thunderbird are the top contenders, and of the self-hosted ones, Roundcube.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary

https://roundcube.net/

The GitHub issue talking about this [1] is such a mess too. Maintainers closing the question with a vague non-answer, deleting comments left and right, etc. Sounds like someone stole the money and everyone is either complicit or too embarrassed to admit that it happened.

[1] https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/6030

https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/blob/master/SQL/mysql.initial.sql Take a look at the tables an you get a idea, session for the app, users-table, contacts-table, dictionary, etc.

You could try a standalone email client like Mozilla's Thunderbird, or if you're experienced running a web server, you could check out something like Roundcube. I suppose you could even run it locally if you're familiar with PHP and/or Docker.

Like... https://roundcube.net/

What I really miss is a "web companion" for Thunderbird, basically something like https://roundcube.net/ or https://www.horde.org/apps/webmail, but a bit more powerful and with better UX. I'd like to use a Google Addressbook within such app, for example (there is a completely outdated plug-in for RoundCube). Another important thing would be powerful and fast search.

Alternatively if you want to keep what you have I wouldn't recommend using the SoGO even though it's the nicest and most modern option. Mainly because it's a full groupware client and will require a lot of configuration. Instead using Roundcube is probably your best option

Roundcube might fit the bill for you.

I'd do it with a local IMAP server in conjunction with a webmail client that connects to it. Dovecot is a fantastic and easy to use IMAP server. Webmail clients are a pretty personal thing, but the last time I used Roundcube it seemed pretty good.

may i recommend https://mailinabox.email ?

I don't see why we are a long way away. At the sandstorm end, we need to get to the point, where all updates (of both sandstorm and the apps) on the user machine are automatic. Much like they are automatic on various OSes (mobile OSes in particular but also MacOS/Windows). This is not impossible if a single OS like Debian-testing is targeted.

Mailinabox [1] almost does it. They target Ubuntu stable, and upgrades are mostly silent. But they needed user intervention when Ubuntu had to be upgraded from 18.10 to 22.04, which was quite challenging.

If sandstorm can get there, then putting it into a RPi box is simple. What's difficult is helping the general public understand the importance of protecting their data, so such a product has a reasonable market.

[1] https://mailinabox.email/

If you have a better solution, for example a good provider who offer agency packages which allows many domains and there is no catch, for example very small disk space, then hit me right away. Otherwise, please share your experience with hosting your own mail service. I found https://mailinabox.email/ and https://www.iredmail.org/ for example, but never had any experience with neither of them.

mailinabox.email works great on a basic vps.