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If these instructions are outdated, please raise an issue or send us a Pull Request.

How to Setup

You need these to use Inbox:

  • A domain name
  • A server to run Inbox

If you want to send emails using Inbox. You need a 3rd party email sending service.(Currently we're using Sendgrid)

For detailed instruction, please keep reading this document.

1. Install Inbox

  1. Clone this git repository

    git clone https://github.com/garageScript/inbox.git

  2. Copy .env.example file and name it .env.local then determine environment variables in .env.local file as following.

    EMAIL_DOMAIN=            // Domain name to use when sending & receiving mails.
APP_HOSTNAME=            // Domain name that hosts inbox web app.

SECRET=                  // Encoding secret for session data. Any value works.
ADMIN_PW=                // Password to login to Inbox as admin user.

SENDGRID_KEY=            // API key that is issued by sendgrid. Used to send mails.

OPENAI_KEY=              // (optional) API key that is issued by openai. Used to get insight of emails.

PUSH_VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY    // (optional) API key that is issued by Push. Used to send push notifications.
PUSH_VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY   // (optional) API key that is issued by Push. Used to send push notifications.

2. Setup DNS Records

Make sure your domain's MX record points to the server you're running Inbox. In order to setup your MX record, check your DNS settings in your domain's provider.

  • Exmaple (assuming your domain name is domain.com and your server ip is 0.0.0.0):
    Type Name Key Meaning
    A mail 0.0.0.0 It points request for mail.domain.com to 0.0.0.0
    MX @ mail.domain.com It points emails sent to *@domain.com and *@*.domain.com to mail.domain.com

In the example above, A record is pointing mail.domain.com to 0.0.0.0 and MX record is pointing emails to mail.domain.com. When some email is sent to [email protected], it will look up domain.com's MX record and send the email data to where it points to. So it will be eventually delivered to 0.0.0.0

3. Setup Sendgrid

  1. Go to Sendgrid and make an account.
  2. Go to dashboard and get api key.
  3. Copy api key and paste it in .env.local file.

If you want to use this app only for receiving mails, skip this step.

4. Run app

  1. Production mode

    Make sure you have docker and docker-compose installed in your machine.

    docker-compose up

  2. Development mode

    Set following values in .env.local file to tell inbox what Elasticsearch host to use in development. You can install and run it in your local machine by downloading it from their official website. In this case your Elasticsearch hostname is usually http://localhost:9200.

    ELASTIC_HOST=            // Address starts with http or https that directs to Elasticsearch host
ELASTIC_USERNAME=        // Elasticsearch username (if required by Elasticsearch host)
ELASTIC_PASSWORD=        // Elasticsearch password (if required by Elasticsearch host)
ELASTIC_INDEX=           // Elasticsearch index name (optional)

    Then run app using this command

    npm i
npm run dev

Environment Variables

This app in default uses .env and .env.local to load environment variables. .env is included in the repository, intending to determine consistent variables that are related to React's build process, etc. .env.local is not included in the repository, intending to determine variables that differ by inbox app's host environment, external API credentials, etc. Additionally, we have an option to add another one as .env.<NODE_ENV> where you can set NODE_ENV in your terminal for example in Mac/Linux, NODE_ENV=development or in Windows cmd, set NODE_ENV=development.

5. Enjoy!

Default port number is 3004. So you can connect to Inbox at http://(your-server-ip):3004

For development mode, use port number 3000 instead.

Admin username is admin, password is equal to the value of environment variable called ADMIN_PW