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Getting Started


Our mail service uses industry standard protocols (IMAP, SMTP) and will work seamlessly with any mail program you choose to use. We recommend Thunderbird for most people.  For iOS, Airmail and Spark are good options, but the default mail and calendaring apps work as well. For Android, Edison, Bluemail, and K9 are all good options, with K9 being the best for end to end encryption. The default mail apps on Android should work fine as well.

Android:
The quick and easy 5 minute setup guide for Android

iPhone:
The quick and easy 5 minute setup guide for iPhone

Moving From Google/Gmail

Please see the instructions here. Note that Google is disabling non-MFA login for their mail servers in September of 2024 so sync jobs will no longer work. Use the Thunderbird method for getting mail over.

Server URLs and Ports

Most mail app should autodiscover the mail settings needed for your paxmail.cc address, but if they do not and you need to enter the details manually, they are:

  • For sending email
    • Protocol: SMTP
    • Server: mail.paxmail.cc
    • Port:     587 (if that doesn't work, use 465)
    • Security: STARTTLS / SSL/TLS
  • For receiving email
    • Protocol: IMAP
    • Server: mail.paxmail.cc
    • Port:      993
    • Security: SSL/TLS

Your username will be your whole email address.


Custom Domains

If you have your own domain, you will need to set your DNS records to point to PaxMail for sending. When you log in to the administrative portal, you will see a section named "Domain Records" which will list all of the records you need to set up. We recommend you
  1.  Create all the Paxmail accounts you'll want under the "User for mydomain" tab
  2.  Switch the DNS, allow for 24 hours to propagate
  3.  Import any old emails into the new accounts using Thunderbird or our sync jobs


Third Party Calendar Apps (iOS)


First, you should check out the quick and easy guide for iPhone. Only use the instructions below if you'd like to do things manually.

In order to use a 3rd party calendaring application like iCal on the Mac, you'll need 3 things:

  1. Set your Locale in Nextcloud
    1. Go to your Nextcloud user settings page
    2. Set the "Locale" setting as the Calendar app uses this.
  2. Create a Nextcloud "App password"
    1. Go to the security settings page
    2. Put an "App Name" in and create a new app password specific for your 3rd party calendar program
  3. Use the Calendar "Internal Link" for use in your 3rd party calendar program
    1. Go to the Calendar
    2. On the left hand side, hover over a calendar name and select the little change icon that appears next to the name. 
    3. You should see an "Internal Link". Copy this and use it for the Calendar URL when setting up your 3rd party program.
  4. When you set up the Calendar on the Mac, make sure you choose "Other Caldav Account" and then the Account Type is "Advanced". 
    1. User Name:
      1.  Your email address
    2. Password:
      1.  The App Password from above
    3. Server Address:
      1.  drive.paxmail.cc
    4. Server path:
      1.  The long part of the internal link after "drive.paxmail.cc" -- it should start with /remote.php and end in a slash
    5. Use SSL:
      1.  checked
    6. Port:
      1.  443


Android Manual Setup


First, you should check out the quick and easy guide for Android. Only use the instructions below if you'd like to do things manually.

Android is much like iOS in that you will need to create App Passwords, but instead of using the default Calendar app from Google directly, you will first need to set up DavX. 

  1. First create an App Password in Nextcloud
  2. Install DavX on your phone and configure it with these instructions
    1. Note that instead of a username/password combo, you can use a "Nextcloud" login and set the server as https://drive.paxmail.cc
  3. You can then use the default "Calendar" program included on your Android with PaxMail, or a 3rd party option like Digical.

Syncing Contacts

To sync contacts with iOS, Thunderbird, or Android, you'll need the CardDav URL for the contacts list, and an app Password. You can use the same one that you created for the Calendar, or create a new one.

Once you have an app password, you can follow the instructions for your platform (Mac, Android, iOS) for how to get Contact sync going. You can use the URL of our drive server, https://drive.paxmail.cc as the server address.

Transferring Mail

We have 2 methods for transferring emails: Sync Jobs & Thunderbird

The recommended way for transferring old mail to Pax is to use Thunderbird. Connect Thunderbird to both your old account and Paxmail accounts. In the inbox of your old account, select all messages (ctrl + a), right click and select COPY TO and select the new Paxmail account. Do this for all folders you'd like to transfer (Inbox, Sent, etc). This method is recommended because you keep your password locally.

Our Sync Jobs are available in the admin portal and involve you giving us the server information for old provider as well as your password. For this reason we recommend you make an app password on your old host if you go this route.  Your old host must support IMAP PLAIN authentication to use Sync Jobs.

Note that Gmail, Google Apps, and others may require an App Password in order for the sync job to work, so if possible please use an app password when running sync jobs.

Forwarding Mail

To forward mail to another address, you can set up a Sieve filter. Go to the mail filter settings. Add a filter similar to this, replacing this placeholder email with the one you want to forward to (keep the quotations):

require ["copy"];

if true
{
    redirect :copy "forward@somewhere.com";
}

Make sure that the sieve filter is selected/active on the filters page in order for it to work. You'll need to select it manually after creation.

3rd Party WebDav


To get 3rd party webdav clients like Joplin to work, you'll need the webDAV URL for your user.

That URL is in the format

https://drive.paxmail.cc/remote.php/dav/files/USERNAME/

To get the username, you'll need to create an App password on the security page.

When you create the App password, your Nextcloud username will be revealed. Copy both it and the password, and put the username in the URL above, replacing USERNAME.

A tricky bit might be that for 3rd party clients like Joplin, the URL will include the username you got above, but actually logging in will require you to use your email address as the username along with the app password you generated.

You can have the 3rd party app files go into a subfolder by first creating it in the web UI, so "Joplin", for example, and then tacking that on to the end of the remote URL

https://drive.paxmail.cc/remote.php/dav/files/USERNAME/Joplin

Referrals

Your custom referral code can be found on your profile page at the bottom.