Using SmarterMail for POP and SMTP retrieval

Question asked by Herbert Kramheller - 1/30/2025 at 6:32 AM

Answered

Hi,

I intend to use SmarterMail on my Homeserver (M$2025-Server) as local Mailserver for storing Mails.

SmarterMail should have local postaccounts for 5 users in the family. The mails should be transferred by POP from the Mailaccounts of my WebHoster, and stored in an IMAP-Box for every account. And sending out an email, the mail should be sent to my Webhoster, to be delivered by him.

Think POP-Retrieval is the right name for this?

I installed SmarterMail on my server, created a domain and firstly one user account. Outbound and Inbound SMTP is activated. But I do not see any possibility to store the account data from my provider for fetching and delivering the mails :-(

can anyone help me for this need?

Regards HK

8 Replies

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Derek Curtis Replied

1/30/2025 at 6:43 AM

Employee Post

Hi, Herbert

You'll want to look at SMTP Accounts and Email Retrieval in your Connectivity settings as a user. Here you can set up POP/IMAP "retrieval" of email from another provider, then set up an SMTP account to use for sending messages. Here's the Help page that discusses your Connectivity options:

https://help.smartertools.com/SmarterMail/Current/Topics/User/Settings/MySettings/ConnectedServices

Derek Curtis

CCO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Herbert Kramheller Replied

1/30/2025 at 7:25 AM

Hi Derek, what a quick answer!

Will test this the next day(s).

If there are further questions, can I ask here again?

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Edit:

Oh just realized, this is to be done when you are logged in as a user. Always searched in the admin page.

If I have the same provider for outgoing mails for all local users: Do I have to set up a smtp-account for every user?

Derek Curtis Replied

1/30/2025 at 8:07 AM

Employee Post

Hi, Herbert

Yeah, you'll need to do it for every user because every user can have different settings. (Even if, in your case, they don't.)

Derek Curtis

CCO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Herbert Kramheller Replied

1/30/2025 at 8:39 AM

And what is the better strategy? Using for every user his own account for smtp, or using for all users the same?

Perhaps to avoid unnecessary traffic?

Employee Replied

1/30/2025 at 8:54 AM

Employee Post

Herbert,

I can't say what the better tactic is, but if you're going to use the same SMTP account for each user, you could consider setting the SMTP service as an Outbound Gateway for the domain. You can create it at Settings > Gateways, and enable it for the domain at Domain > Options > Outbound Gateways. If you enter the auth credentials when setting up the gateway, then each user on your server will authenticate with those credentials when sending through the gateway.

Andrew Barker Replied

1/30/2025 at 10:21 AM

Employee Post

I second Jorel's suggestion. If you can use the gateway configuration, it also simplifies things for the users. When using SMTP Accounts for each user, it would only really work when using the web mail interface, and the users would need to choose to send from the SMTP account for each message. Using the Gateway, it would work whether the users are sending from the web interface or from a client, and it would be seamless to the users.

Andrew Barker
Lead Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.
www.smartertools.com

Herbert Kramheller Replied

2/8/2025 at 11:28 AM

pop-retrieval makes me problems.

I setup a new user, logged in as the user, entered the connectivity and the the tab with pop/imap-account.

There I created an account (other) with all the infos i got from the provider.

But pressing the save-button, the the bar flashes from left to right and not even more reaction over minutes.
I double checked the account data. Looking good. Out of good ideas now

Is there any status-site with debug infos, where I can see,what smartermail is doing?

BTW: I disabled the firewall on the computer.

EDIT:

OK. provider needed more time to update password. Now working. But still the question for debug infos...

Herbert Kramheller Replied

2/8/2025 at 12:05 PM

Marked As Answer

OK. mails out is working too.
But i have a "special problem". There is a mail-address within the defined domain of smartermail, that should not be handled within smartermail. But actually sending a mail to this address, it looks like smartermail is looking for this account within smartermail, and I get a "Remote Server returned: 'The recipient does not exist'" from the System Administrator
As i remember from hmailserver, there was a routing for such mailadresses to be sent external.
Any similiar possibility? -> new question opened

~~And the time for automatic retrieve messages is 10 minutes. Any chance to change this? e.g.3min. (my provider has no problem with this higher frequency)~~ Solved. (is in settings->protocols

And .....

Can not get access from outlook to the smartermail-server. using IMAP.

tried all possibilities of port/encryption and so on. Always get a "can not get connection to the IMAP-Server..."
Is there a general need of activating imap-protocol?

--> Edit: After several tests, I have seen, that I can only get access with imap-port=143 and smtp-port=25. Looks like by default only unencrypted connection is usable?

Think these ~~three~~ two topics solved, and I am ready to use it :-)

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