Looking for a guide to collect all e-mail from the ISP mail server

[R. Diez]

>> I would not advice any company that is continuously being fined for breaking the law.

> This is not only an overstatement, it is completely irrelevant.  Given the OP problem
> statement (small business, part-time admin, newbie to mail 
> servers), I do not think there is a better solution
> A small server already costs 20 USD / month, running a mail server consumes a significant amount 
> of resources, and as the OP mentions running a mail server also represents a high security risk.


Guys, this kind of advice is not helping me either.

First of all, I want to learn how to do it, just for fun. Even if paying for a hosted solution is an economically better solution. It's not for me to 
decide anyway.

I will not recommend Google. Ever heard of data protection and data confidentiality? And then you are completely dependent. Your are nothing for a 
huge company like Google. If they lose your complete e-mail database, they will tell you that they are awfully sorry. If at all.

And no, running a mail server does not "consume a significant amount of resources". Any 10-year-old laptop can easily cater for a small business.

Besides, paying $6/user/month is actually very expensive for some small organisations. If you have 20 volunteers coming to the help in a small public 
library once a month, that would be $1440 a year just for e-mail services. Most such people would continue to use private Hotmail addresses. I would 
rather install a Synology NAS and use whatever e-mail service it comes with it.

An on-premise mail server is, and should be, virtually free, at least for a basic e-mail service. No need for cloud. No need to expose any ports. No 
need to configure the firewall. No need to ask anything from your ISP.

I have seen it running like that on existing small businesses with Microsoft Exchange and the POP Connector. It is just that Microsoft wants you to 
pay a subscription now, probably because the old licence fees are way cheaper than $6/user/month.

If Linus had been reading this mailing list, we would all be paying lawyers to contract professional Sun/Oracle consultants to run our software on 
certified Solaris servers!

Regards,
   rdiez