Despite being the oldest form of online communication, email is still the go-to option for any serious digital correspondence—especially in business. 

While most people automatically defer to 

 from the biggest mainstream providers like Microsoft and Google, that’s not the best idea if you take 

Many large email service providers (ESPs) access the contents of your emails and use the information they find to create targeted advertising campaigns—and that’s not the only way your privacy may be compromised with a typical email setup. 

One of the methods of addressing such privacy and security concerns is a private email setup.

In this article, you’ll learn about setting up a private email server as a way of taking your email privacy protection to the next level. We’ll discuss:

What the advantages and disadvantages of a private email setup are

Email servers are specialized computers whose primary purpose is to facilitate your email correspondence. 

They receive and send emails and store them before they’re transferred to another server or downloaded to your device.

A private email server is one that you set up and own—a computer that handles your incoming and outgoing email messages.

 You control who has access to it and manage its storage, which ensures a higher degree of privacy than what you’d get with any major ESP.

Server looks at the address of the recipient’s email server

Message is sent to the recipient’s server

Recipient’s email client downloads the message from their email server

 over your data to the ESP, as they own and operate the servers the info goes through.The process is the same if the sender and the recipient use private email servers. Still, there are no intermediaries except the cell towers and data cables that carry the information across the Internet, and the messages remain private between the two parties.

The first step in setting up a private email server is investing in the required hardware and software. 

Besides this initial investment, running an email server comes with ongoing monthly costs. The exact expenses can vary depending on your location and particular hardware setup.

If you want to set up the hardware yourself, you’ll need a computer with sufficient storage space for your server software and messages. Otherwise, you can look for a cloud hosting solution and rent hardware from a hosting provider.

Regardless of the option you choose, the email server will also need a 

 name—the part that comes after @ in your email address, like outlook.com or gmail.com. 

The next thing you need is a high-speed, stable internet connection to ensure maximum uptime on your private email server. Finally, you’ll also require server software, including:

An operating system (OS) like Windows or Linux

The exact tech stack will vary depending on the OS you choose. Once you’ve bought everything, you’ll have to learn the hardware and software configurations and start the process.

Cloud-based servers are an option, but you’ll still need to set up and maintain the software. If the hosting provider offers to do that instead, you’ll have to pay an additional fee. 

Coupled with other costs of setting up and running an email server, it’s an expensive way to ensure email privacy.

Before making a decision, check out the benefits and drawbacks of setting up your own private email server.

The main advantage of setting up a private email server instead of relying on an ESP server is more privacy. 

A private email server increases your online security by:

Ensuring no ESP employees can ever access your emails

Preventing any automatic scanning of your emails for targeted ads, training of machine learning algorithms, or similar activities

Eliminating the possibility of a law enforcement or government agency requesting email data from your provider

A private server lets you control every aspect of your email correspondence, from the email client you use to the robustness of your email spam filters.

There are a lot more drawbacks to setting up a private email server than there are benefits. The most notable are:

—Setting up a private server is difficult and requires advanced technical knowledge. Many people also don’t have the time to manage an email server actively because it demands constant patches and updates. If you don’t know the intricacies of web technologies and aren’t tech-savvy, you’ll need time to learn the particulars first

Various software and hardware equipment necessary

—You must invest in a complex hardware setup, a variety of software, or a cloud hosting solution

—Running a server comes with constant maintenance work and security updates. Managing a private email server is a massive responsibility in the long run because higher privacy and 

 aren’t a given. You’re accountable for every aspect, so your 

—Unlike Google or Microsoft, you don’t have a globe-spanning server infrastructure worth millions of dollars, and your private email setup will be less reliable. A mainstream ESP guarantees decent accessibility at all times—if a Gmail server fails, Google always has alternate routes and backup solutions that ensure constant uptime. If your private server fails, you can’t send an email until you fix the problem

 also have extensive backup infrastructures, often cloud-based. Hosting emails yourself means you keep everything on your hardware or a small part of a rented server, bearing responsibility for the backups.

Even with a functional backup, you may not have the advanced tech skills necessary to restore the system after an incident. 

Renting pre-configured servers from a hosting provider is an alternative but not a perfect one.

Why hosting providers aren’t an ideal solution

Finding a hosting partner and renting a server solves issues such as worrying about server hardware. Unfortunately, the approach entails other problems:

Hosting providers aren’t always reliable

If you use a hosting provider, you don’t own a 

 server—you’re merely a renter. This brings you back to the initial ownership problem with mainstream ESPs.

Another issue is that even the best hosting providers rarely have the guaranteed uptime you get with Gmail or the 

. If unsatisfied, you can switch to a better hosting provider, but the migration process is complex. Ultimately, they’re a poor replacement for ESPs, despite the privacy concerns with the latter.

Here’s a breakdown of your options when it comes to email servers:

Private email servers are difficult to set up and run, rented servers are unreliable, and large ESPs come with privacy issues. 

Luckily, there’s a fourth option—email clients with end-to-end encryption (E2EE), like 

Solve your email security issues quickly with Skiff

Every server solution we’ve mentioned above comes with specific issues. 

 successfully avoids them all by providing:

 is the ideal way to ensure your online privacy. 

The platform uses an encryption algorithm that involves two corresponding keys—one for encrypting and the other for decrypting messages. The encryption is performed at the device level, ensuring your communication remains private and unreadable to anyone but the intended recipient.

Most ESPs provide some form of encryption, but their solutions only protect email data while in transit or when resting on a server.

 E2EE does both by encrypting emails on your device before they’re ever uploaded to a server. As a result, no one has access to your emails and 

Forget about expensive hardware or complex private email settings—Skiff doesn’t require any setup or maintenance on your part. You create a Skiff account in three easy steps:

Once you complete the three simple steps above, you’ll have access to all of Skiff’s products:

—a scheduling and planning app for events

—a secure online workspace for collaboration and note-taking

—an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service

Like Skiff Mail, all other Skiff products were built with the same robust E2EE setup. Unlike private email servers and mainstream ESPs, Skiff doesn’t ask you to choose between ease of use and security but provides both. Skiff’s products were carefully designed to be sleek, functional, and intuitive, ensuring users can easily navigate them regardless of their technical knowledge.

With Skiff, you can be comfortable sending sensitive information or 

The platform allows web3 integration, providing users of wallets like MetaMask with a private communication platform to facilitate their anonymous online transactions. You can use your MetaMask credentials to seamlessly log into Skiff and start sending messages with complete 

.Unlike the technology used by most ESPs, Skiff’s encryption is 100% open-source and transparent. If you want to learn more about how Skiff protects your email and documents, check out the 

 today and cement your online privacy! If you want to learn more about future updates or talk to the devs directly, you can also 

Setting up a private email server—pros, cons, and alternatives

 for over four decades with billions of emails sent and received every single day. It's arguably one of the oldest means of digital communication and mature enough such that one could configure and run their own email server to serve emails using their own domain name. Governments, multinational corporations, and families all rely on email as a cornerstone of asynchronous communication and management.

On a high level, running one's own email server a.k.a SMTP server involves running an incoming email server to receive email messages, an outgoing email server to send email messages, and a email client or web interface to perform the compose, send and read operations.

Let's understand the components involved in running a email server.

It is a web-based mail client used to compose, send, receive & read messages (eg. Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook).

The two popular ways of accessing email messages are Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) defined in the 

 standard and Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) defined in the 

, the email client is a private and end-to-end encrypted where email messages are first encrypted before sending them. For more details on how Skiff provides privacy & encryption follow this 

Outgoing Mail Server or Mail Submission Agent (MSA)

Responsible for sending messages to Message Transfer Agent (MTA). MSA must only accept messages from authenticated users.

Incoming Mail Server or Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)

Responsible for delivering the messages sent by other email servers. It queues the messages and/or forward to a Message Delivery Agent (MDA) for further processing & storage.

A message store can be any database or file system used for storing the incoming & outgoing email messages. It is accessed by the MUA to view the received & sent messages.

A spec that defines how an email client (MUA) submits email messages and how the MTA's should transfer those messages.

This section walks through how a typical email send and receive workflow works, as well as how an email server itself operates.

Email messages between senders and recipients flow through multiple steps. In many cases, the sender and recipient are using different email service providers and different email servers around the world, requiring multiple steps before an email gets to its final destination.

Sender users the email client to compose the message and send it via the outgoing mail server and store the message in the message store so it can be accessed later.

The outgoing mail server then communicates with recipient’s incoming mail server over SMTP protocol and performs a handshake to deliver the email message to recipient’s email address or email account.

The recipient’s server then stores the email message on the recipient’s email provider message store.

Ultimately, the recipient can access the email message using the email client and compose a response which will be sent via the recipients email provider outgoing mail server.

Alternatively, a Mail Delivery Agent (MDA) may be used to process the email messages queued by the incoming mail server. The MDA is responsible for actually storing the email messages and perform any business logic - custom spam filtering, user lookups and so on. This is to keep the functionality of the incoming mail server to a minimum and achieve high availability & low latency for email delivery.

Running an email server comes with security challenges. There is huge potential for spam & abuse if the email server is not configured properly. A large part of running an email server successfully involves effectively filtering spam email messages and maintaining high IP reputation of the IPs associated to the outgoing mail server.

Here are a few basic security configurations that are critical to maintaining high deliverability of email messages and filtering spam messages. These apply to all email or smtp servers.

Just like web servers, communication between the client and email servers can be secured using Transport Layer Security (TLS). STARTTLS is the extension for SMTP protocol specified in the 

 as a way to explicitly request TLS connections by clients.

Only authenticated users/clients must be able to send messages via the outgoing mail server. This is important because bad actors could leverage an open outgoing email server to send spam and damage the reputation of the email server.

In addition, it is recommended to run the outgoing email server over a private network behind NAT (Network Address Translation) gateways to restrict public access.

Email Server DNS (Domain Name System) Configuration

DKIM is Domain-Keys Identified Mail is a 

 standard that specifies signing emails sent by an outgoing email server. The domain owner can publish asymmetric key pair. The private key is used by the outgoing email server to sign the content and/or headers of the email message. The public key is used by incoming mail server to verify the email message.

This establishes the ownership of the email message being sent and the incoming mail server can verify authenticity of the email. The verification of signature allows incoming server to filter out spam email messages before delivering them to the users’ mailbox.

We recommend that domain owners rotate their DKIM keys periodically. Since the public key is published in the domain configuration, it opens the DKIM keys for phishing attacks. Rotating the keys helps reduce this attack vector significantly.

SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. It is specified in 

 standard. The domain owner can create a TXT record in their domain configuration and list the IP addresses of the outgoing email server. This record is used by incoming mail server to verify if the email message is indeed sent from one of those IP addresses and reject them if the IP is not part of the SPF record.

This maintain the IP reputation of the domain’s outgoing email servers.

MX is Mail Exchange record which specifies the email server that is responsible for handling incoming mail messages for a particular domain.

It is recommended to run multiple groups of email servers with varying levels of priority. This is to provide high availability and uptime.

DMARC is Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance standard specified in 

While SPF & DKIM records allow the domain owners to protect the authenticity of the incoming email messages, it does not influence the action that should be taken by the incoming mail server if SPF or DKIM checks fail.

DMARC allows specifying a policy by the owner of the domain which dictates how the incoming mail server should handle non-authentic emails. This is done by publishing a TXT record in the domain configuration which specifies the policy.

Skiff is a provider of end-to-end encrypted email service. All the emails sent & received between users of Skiff Mail are 100% private and only they have access to those email messages.

To deliver on our mission of providing privacy, at Skiff we build and run our own email/smtp servers. This allows us to further extend our email server capabilities to enhance security and scalability.

Skiff’s encrypted email servers offer a high level of security for businesses and individuals who need to communicate sensitive information. By encrypting emails, these servers prevent third-party interception and protect the privacy of communications.

Skiff Mail also allows consumers and businesses to onboard their own custom domains for sending and receiving emails. Users of Skiff Mail can import all their emails from other providers by importing .eml files as well as take advantage of direct import feature for importing emails from Microsoft Outlook and Gmail.

Email protocols are the set of rules and standards that are used to exchange messages over the internet. The most commonly used email protocol is the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which is used to send and receive messages between servers.

When a user composes and sends an email, their email client sends it to their email server using SMTP. The email server then looks up the recipient's email address to determine their email server, and sends the message to that server using SMTP. The recipient's email server then receives the message and delivers it to the recipient's email client.

Other email protocols include the Post Office Protocol (POP) and the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), which are used to retrieve messages from the email server and access them on the user's email client. These protocols also use a system of commands and responses to transfer messages between the email client and server.

A complex system of authentication and DNS records (DKIM, SPF, DMARC, and MX records) govern email deliverability and email security.

Overall, email protocols are an essential part of the email system, allowing users to send and receive messages reliably and securely over the internet.

How does an email server work?

Skiff – private, end to end encrypted, and decentralized

 Web3 email - recently rolled out deeper integrations with ENS, the Ethereum Naming Service. 

 is a privacy first and fully end-to-end encrypted communication and collaboration product that allows you to send and receive private messages. Skiff’s other products – including 

 – allow you to collaborate communicate and share files, all completely privately.

Skiff Mail is built to be fully Web3 native and integrates with many of the most popular browser-based wallets for Ethereum and Solana. This includes a deep integration with MetaMask, 

Wallets are anonymous, private, and user friendly way to own your own identity, utilize various tokens, and purchase or share assets without providing any personally identifying information. Now, through Skiff, wallets power a whole new form of collaboration and communication on the web.

This blog outlines how to set up, send, and receive into encrypted private messages using your ENS name.


The Ethereum Naming Service adds a human readable and easy-to-share layer on top of Ethereum wallet addresses, which are 42 character hexadecimal addresses (and hard to remember!). ENS names are a resolution, lookup, and naming service built into the Ethereum blockchain, so human readable names - like 

 - can be easily shared and resolved to a particular Ethereum address.

The ENS DAO and governance system also includes protocols for registering names, expiring names, and, more recently, auctioning names for further use. ENS is a fully decentralized protocol, allowing token holders to vote on future proposals, governance, and community operations. The $ENS token is an ERC-20 token used to govern the Ethereum Naming Service.


To set up your ENS name on Skiff, begin by connecting the wallet that owns the ENS name as an NFT. To purchase an ENS name, you can visit the 

, and ENS wallet lookups can be done publicly on 


When you purchase a ENS name, you will create forward and reverse resolution records. These records indicate that a given ENS is owned by your particular wallet address, and, in the reverse direction, you can add a default resolution record for your wallet address to resolve to an ENS name.

Once you’ve purchased and set up your ENS name, you can connect this name to Skiff by signing up with the wallet you used to purchase your ENS name and add a resolution record.

Using the compose window to send mail with your ENS

Once you have signed up and connected your wallet, such as MetaMask, Brave Wallet, BitKeep, or other wallets, log into Skiff’s web, mobile, or desktop apps using this wallet address and the password created on signup.

Now, when you open the compose window you will see your wallet address registered as your default sending from alias, as well as your Ethereum address using the domain ethereum.email, which is only usable once you have proven that you own your particular wallet address. For example, the addresses 0x0bc607...25ade6@skiff.com and 0x0bc607...25ade6@ethereum.email will be available once connecting your wallet.


If you have signed up with a Wallet that is connected to an ENS name, you will also see it as a front address in the compose window. In the example above, the wallet address 0x0bc607...25ade6 has registered skiff.eth, so skiff.eth@skiff.com will also be available.


As outlined above, an ENS name can be resolved back to a paritcular Ethereum wallet address. So, when mail is sent to a given ENS name, like skiff.eth@skiff.com, Skiff will automatically resolve it to back to a wallet address, which will have been used to sign up and create a Skiff account.

This enables using an ENS name not only for sending mail as a Compose alias, but also for receiving mail from other Skiff users and from external email addresses. In a world where owning your own data and identity is a necessity, using the Ethereum naming service to send and receive mail is a critical next step in ensuring a privacy-first future.


If you don’t already own an ENS name head over to 

 to check out the marketplace and registration process. Then, visit 

 in a wallet connected browser to register a Skiff account.

How to send and receive email using the Ethereum Naming Service

 - a new way to share any type of file with the security of end-to-end encryption.

Now, you can drag and drop any file — from audio to video to GIF’s — into a page on Skiff. Furthermore, if you enable decentralized storage in your 

, your embedded files will be decentralized and stored on 

To start, drag-and-drop a file into the Skiff page you want it to appear in. You’ll see a progress indicator as your file is end-to-end encrypted and embedded.

If your enable decentralized storage on IPFS, you’ll see a cube indicator linking to the data’s 

 (CID) and its encryption key. Just like all data on Skiff, everything uploaded to IPFS is end-to-end encrypted.

We’ll be covering embeds in our next office hours and newsletter. In the meantime, if you have any questions, join the conversation on our 

File embeds: Upload any file to Skiff

 like people who are constantly playing a game of 'hot lava' where everything but the keyboard is lava — if their hands ever have to leave the keyboard, they die.

Skiff supports an ever-growing list of keyboard shortcuts that are designed to make power users feel right at home. Read on to learn about the most essential time-saving shortcuts.

Slash commands were first popularized by IRC (Internet Relay Chat) enabling users to execute commands as easily as they could send messages. A few examples are /join #channelname to join a specific channel or /msg nickname to start a private chat with someone.

IRC has steadily declined in popularity since its peak in 2003. Since then, other popular messaging and productivity tools, notably including Slack, have picked up the feature and brought it to a new generation of power users.

On Skiff, you can type / anytime to reveal a list of commands to modify their current page. Slash commands are searchable. For example, starting to type /Table will quickly filter available commands and prompt you with the option to insert a Table. Similarly, /Subpage , /Heading , /Todo list , insert just what you’d expect. If you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, scroll up and down the list using arrow keys to discover all the possible commands.

There’s an old proverb that says: "If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together."

With Skiff, looping in your collaborators is as easy as typing the @ character, making group efforts just as fast as solo missions. Use the @ mention feature to mention a collaborator or mention a page.

When you mention a collaborator, they’ll receive a notification that will let them quickly jump into the document you’re referencing. When mentioning a page, a handy in-line link is created, making it easy to tie documents together even if they aren’t in the same hierarchical structure.

Together, both types of mentions make it straightforward to keep everyone on the same … 

 … page and to keep as much of your communication as possible contained to one platform. Mentions mean there’s no need to message a teammate a link to your document or copy-paste content from one platform to another — it’s an efficient, private and secure way to work.

The Quick Actions menu lets you search and interact with your entire Workspace at lightning speed. Either click the Search button in the left sidebar or hit Cmd + p to open the quick actions menu. This allows you to search, create a new page or folder, upload files, open settings, or re-open recently modified documents all without leaving the active page.

Some people cover their desk with drafts, research, and sticky notes. Others like to brainstorm on a whiteboard (real or virtual). In the age of digital collaboration, a lot of us like to open tons of tabs and switch between them all day long.

For the tab lovers out there, we’re here for you. Open any page in a new tab with cmd + left click . Keep everything you need within one click by opening as many Skiff tabs as your heart desires.

Skiff shortcuts

: the barriers that prevent people from switching from one product to another. Sometimes switching costs are by design — think cancellation fees — and sometimes they arise naturally, such as when people are simply reluctant to invest time and energy into learning the ins-and-outs of a new product, even a superior one.

In the world of online privacy, switching costs make a big difference. Take Google Drive as an example: Many people realize that it doesn’t make sense to store all of their private documents on a platform owned by a company whose business model hinges on selling hyper-targeted ads — a company whose 

 resulted in the leak of the personal data of 52 million users of Google+. And yet, Google Drive reportedly accounts for roughly 35% of the the file-hosting market.

People unconcerned with their online privacy and data autonomy may have legitimate reasons for preferring Google Drive, but for a substantial group of users, what keeps them from jumping ship to a privacy-respecting product like Skiff is a perceived switching cost. If you’re anything like us, you’ve likely been slowly accumulating files on Google Drive for about a decade — sorting and porting gigabytes of files over to another platform sounds like a giant headache that’s probably somewhere just behind “reading up on the tax code” on your priority list.

At Skiff, we’ve got a pretty simple philosophy: We think people shouldn’t have to choose between privacy and laziness. We want our online lives to be private 

, with zero additional thought or effort needed — the same way that everything in your own home is private by default, even when you’re just enjoying a lazy afternoon on the couch and not, you know, actively preventing Google from 

That philosophy is why everything you do on Skiff is end-to-end encrypted. There’s no setting to toggle. Privacy isn’t optional. Skiff is completely private from the first time you use it and no one but you can ever access your data — not even Skiff.

But we still had a problem to solve: switching costs. How could we make it easy for people to get gigabytes of data off of an anti-privacy platform like Google Drive onto a privacy-respecting, end-to-end encrypted, lazy-person-friendly platform like Skiff?

The answer was obvious — to us and everyone else — which is why it became our most-requested feature ever. We needed to give you the option to click a single button to transfer all of your Google Docs onto Skiff and then never think about it again. So that’s what we did.

Skiff’s new import feature couldn’t be simpler. To use it:

Hit the upload button and select “Import from drive”

Authenticate your Google account and you’re done

From Skiff’s perspective, there’s some interesting stuff going on under the hood that makes sure 

the import process is completely private.

privacy-respecting password-reset process

, we needed to ensure that document import never compromised end-to-end encryption. Any process that required Skiff to gain access to your documents would break end-to-end encryption and defeat the whole purpose.

We solved this by encrypting all of your documents locally before they’re ever uploaded to Skiff. So the process looks like this:

You download your own documents from Google Drive

These docs are encrypted locally on your own device before they’re ever transmitted over a network

Then they’re uploaded to Skiff and safely stored with the rest of your end-to-end encrypted data

So that’s it. As switching costs go, moving from Google Drive to Skiff is about as cheap as it gets.


We have also recently rolled out comprehensive file storage on Skiff. Simply drag and drop any file, no matter what file type, onto a Skiff page and your file will be embedded for future easy access.

If IPFS is enabled on your account, all your embedded files will automatically be stored on IPFS and fully decentralized.

We’re also planning to introduce import features for more file-hosting services in the future. If you have any requests or ideas on how we can better support your online privacy, 

How to (Privately) Switch from Google Drive to Skiff

You’ve just sent an email and changed your mind. How can you recall it from being sent on major providers, including Outlook, Gmail, Skiff, and more?

In the business world, email has become the primary form of professional communication. It is fast, concise, and easy to use. Email is universally used to communicate with clients, customers, and colleagues. It is also a great way to stay organized and keep track of important information.

Email has several advantages over other forms of communication. First, it is fast and easy to use. You can quickly send a message and get a response back in a matter of minutes. Second, email is concise. You can get your point across quickly and without having to worry about grammar or punctuation. Finally, email is a great way to 

. You can create folders and subfolders to keep track of different types of messages.

Email is also a great way to build relationships with clients and customers. You can use it to stay in touch with them and build a rapport. In addition, email can be used to build trust and credibility. If you are responsive to customer inquiries and concerns, they will be more likely to do business with you.

Furthermore, email has a wide degree of personalization and automation tools. This includes sending and receiving at your business’ website or domain names, adding custom signatures, styling, and text, and automating update or client emails that contribute to critical marketing and business goals. Overall, email is a vital tool in the business world. It is fast, easy to use, and concise. It is also a great way to stay organized and build relationships with clients and customers.

However, from time to time, you may either make a mistake - or simply regret sending - an email after you’ve clicked the send button. As a result, many providers have integrated recall and undo send features, which will enable a user to unsend a recently sent email. Whether you’ve reached out to the wrong person, spotted an embarrassing typo, or accidentally shipped a particular note too early, undo and recall features are critical to set up on your email provider.

Generally, email providers implement different feature sets and practices. For example, Gmail’s labeling system differs from Outlook’s folder system, and each email provider chooses their own user interface and feature set to implement for organizing mail. Once mail has been set to an external provider, that provider will immediately deliver it to the recipient’s inbox. Given this, there is no universal standard for how to unsend or recall emails.

In contrast, some messaging providers have built in unsending as a feature. For example, on Apple’s new iOS 16 operating system for iPhones, it is possible to 

; Instagram also allows users to unsend direct 

 on their platform. Messaging providers have significantly more flexibility to determine sending and unsending behavior, as they manage both the sender and recipient accounts.