[email Tutorial] Create your own and free of charge email Network in less than 10 minutes

Hi all,

This little tutorial explains you how to run your own email
infrastructure for family and friends, without paying a dime.

No email privacy provider accounts required.
No own Domain required.
No VPS required.
No postfix set-up required.
No pop3,IMAP required.

Requirements:

1. Tor Expert Bundle - https://www.torproject.org/download/tor/
2. OpenSSL           - https://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html>
3. Mini Mailer       - https://github.com/Ch1ffr3punk/mmg
4. smtpdump          - https://github.com/Ch1ffr3punk/smtpdump

Step 1. First we create a Tor Hidden Service. For that go in your
        tor.exe folder and edit the torrc file and put two lines
        in it:

        HiddenServiceDir C:/Users/xxxxxx/Desktop/xxxxx/tor/hidden_service/
        HiddenServicePort 2525 127.0.0.1:2525

        Restart tor.exe and you will find a hostname file with the
        .onion URL in your hidden_service folder.

Step 2. Create TLS certificates for smtpdump:

        openssl req -nodes -new -x509 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem

Step 3. Run smtpdump.exe with the following parameters:

        C:\Users\xxxxx\Desktop>smtpdump -debug -cert keys/cert.pem -key keys/key.pem -tls13 -output inbox

        Where, in this case, the keys folder contains the certs and the
        inbox folder is for incomming emails.

Step 4. Configure Mini Mailer.

        For each family member or friend, co-worker etc. you have to create
        a config file and a template.

        A config file may look like this:

        SMTP Host fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion
        SMTP Port 2525
        SOCKS5 Port 9050

        A template may look like this:

        From: pollux@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion
        To: castor@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion
        Subject: whatever

        Your message goes here.

Step 5. Sample Session output from smtpdump:

C:\Users\xxxxx\Desktop>smtpdump -debug -cert keys/cert.pem -key keys/key.pem -tls13 -output inbox
2025/05/18 21:29:26 Enabled TLS support
2025/05/18 21:29:26 Minimum TLSv1.3 accepted
2025/05/18 21:29:26 Listening on "127.0.0.1:2525" ...
  220 iria SMTPDump ESMTP Service ready
  EHLO localhost
  250-iria greets localhost
  250-SIZE 0
  250-STARTTLS
  250-AUTH CRAM-MD5
  250 ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
  STARTTLS
  220 2.0.0 Ready to start TLS
  EHLO localhost
  250-iria greets localhost
  250-SIZE 0
  250-AUTH CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN
  250 ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
  MAIL FROM:<pollux@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion>
  250 2.1.0 Ok
  RCPT TO:<castor@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion>
2025/05/18 21:32:17 [RCPT] "pollux@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion" => "castor@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion"
  250 2.1.5 Ok
  DATA
  354 Start mail input; end with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
  250 2.0.0 Ok: queued
2025/05/18 21:32:18 Received mail from "pollux@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion" with subject "äöüÄÖÜ߀"
2025/05/18 21:32:18 Wrote "inbox\\1747596738506159900_-3952053490517768965.eml"
  QUIT
  221 2.0.0 iria SMTPDump ESMTP Service closing transmission channel

The received email looks like this:

Received: from localhost (kubernetes.docker.internal. [127.0.0.1])
        by iria (SMTPDump) with SMTP
        for <castor@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion>; Sun, 18 May 2025 21:32:18 +0200 (CEST)
From: pollux@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion
To: castor@fswlpxkp6xdrwrcu3dmby4lwv4z22bep32s3f3ffrua3x4bmvdyhg2ad.onion
Subject: äöüÄÖÜ߀
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 18 May 2025 19:32:14 +0000

As you see, no MIME headers for international characters are needed.

Hello World! :-)Step 6. That's all. :-) You now have successfully set-up your own email
        service, which is online as long as you do not power-off your PC.

        This way you can be reached, once you come home from school/work.

        If you have a spare Raspberry Pi you can run your own service
        24/7 and ssh into the machine.

Hope you like this little tutorial and find it useful!

Best regards
Stefan