Email Client?

[Stevins]

I'm using gmail and was wonder if there is a plugin or some way to have Freenas serve as an email client. The reason for this would just be to have a backup in case something happens. Thanks in advance!

 

[diedrichg]

Check out Gmail Backup

Code:

https://code.google.com/p/gmail-backup-com/

You could then just point it to a mounted network drive.

 

[Stevins]

Cool, I didn't even know this existed. Thanks!

 

[Stevins]

Anyone using anything that will actively check the inbox, like an email client? Looks like the Gmail Backup tool has to be run manually.....

 

[Steve Lumponalog]

Check out Mutt and Alpine – two superb command-line e-mail clients. You could run either or both in a FreeNAS jail, and use SSH to log in to the jail and check your messages.

Mutt is very feature-rich, but also quite complicated to set up, though there are tutorials and configuration tips all over the web. Alpine is simpler, and perhaps a better place to start if you're not totally comfortable in a console environment. To make an analogy with text editors, I would say that if Mutt was emacs or vi, Alpine would be Nano or Pico.

Those are my favourites, but there are plenty of other jail-friendly command-line mail clients listed on Wikipedia. If you'd rather have something with a web front-end, you could even set up a jail-based web server with an AJAX or PHP webmail client and check your messages with a web browser.

I recently dropped Apple Mail in favour of Mutt, and run it on my Mac laptop and on a home FreeNAS server in a standard jail. The jail has all my favourite BSD command-line tools and configuration options set up as a cushy home development environment. The advantage of setting everything up in a FreeNAS jail is that it's always on and able to run prolonged or automated tasks, unlike a laptop or phone. I can access it from my home LAN, or from anywhere in the world over SSH or VPN thanks to tmux and a pfSense router.