Forgive the vagueness of this question; it is because of my lack of knowledge and understanding of that which i am proposing!

My mail comes through a pop server at GoDaddy downloaded every 5 minutes via ThunderBird client. I have found it somewhat cumbersome to access my mail on their server from other locations, but there have been many times that I wish I could remotely access all of my email. I could sort-of do so by having GoDaddy store everything for about a week which would allow access to pretty much anything relatively current, but having to use their interface subjected me to the limitations inherent therein. I used to use "Logmein" to access everything on my computer including the email client, but now that there is not a free subscription, I don't. Even then, the process was cumbersome - having to hope whatever computer was able to connect with logmein and then the screen delays. It worked, but it wasn't pretty.

So now we get down to the central question and purpose of this post: What would be involved in setting up my own mail server on my home computer (or any other proposed alternative)? Is there anything that would kill the idea from the beginning? I do maintain a rather basic website on the GoDaddy servers - would there be an angle that this would allow? The intent is to establish the server much like many of us have with corporate email, and provide for Outlook to be the interface from where-ever i go.

I am an the verge of transitioning from ThunderBird to Outlook. If i am going to do so, i think i might as well shoot at all the things i wish to accomplish, and one major one is to be able to get my mail from pretty much where-ever i am. If i could have it all routed to a server i control i am wondering if the entire process would be more comfortable for me - simply by having more control. If i was running the mail server, chances are less that the site would be specifically barred by corporate rules where i work and i would not have to be concerned with how much data i am storing, which would be the case if i just got used to leaving everything on the GoDaddy servers.

Am i grabbing a tiger by the tail with this, or might it make sense? If so, are there any good tutorials out there anyone knows of?



And oh - I do have perhaps five to ten common use email addresses - gmail, outlook, yahoo, the couple domains i have, icloud and i'm sure a few more. Any thoughts on intgrating thier feed into the process is appreciated!

I greatly appreciate the help all of you provide. When i was in high-school, i was one of those nerds with a big old Texas Instrument four function calculator on his belt; i never so much as thought the day would come that i could be getting advice from anyone from any point on the globe like we can now. Really amazing. Astonishing. Thank-you.

You don't want to do that. To setup up a stable email server, usually you need to have:

1. A spare computer which would be on 24x7
2. A high speed internet connection.
3. Your own domain name.
4. A dedicated IP address.

Even you have all these, it still can't come close to a Godaddy server, not to mention the cost involved.

A Godaddy server is
1. located in an air-conditioned and secure datacenter.
2. connected to the Internet backbone directly.
3. with redundant power supply.
4. with other services such as backup and on-site support.

Reality sure can get in the way...