Windows Home Server — Part 18: Replacing Paid Email Forwarding & SMTP (SendGrid, Mailgun)

Managed email forwarding services (like ImprovMX) and transactional SMTP providers (like SendGrid or Mailgun) limit free tiers, charge monthly subscription fees, or block forwarding options.

We can solve this using a hybrid model: we will route all incoming custom domain emails using Cloudflare Email Routing (100% Free) to your personal inbox (Gmail or Outlook), and install Mailrise natively on our server to handle outbound transactional alerts—converting standard application SMTP emails into instant smartphone push notifications.

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1. Inbound Routing: Cloudflare Email Routing

Cloudflare offers free inbound email forwarding for any domain managed under their DNS:

[Sender] ──> [email protected] ──> [Cloudflare Email Router] ──> [email protected]

Setup Steps:

1. Log into your Cloudflare Dashboard and select your domain.
2. In the left sidebar, click Email → Email Routing.
3. Click Get Started / Enable Email Routing.
4. Cloudflare will request to auto-configure your DNS. Click Add records automatically to add the correct MX and TXT records (SPF configuration).
5. In the Routing rules tab, click Create rule:
   • Custom address: hi (or support / admin).
   • Action: Forward to.
   • Destination address: Enter your personal email (e.g. [email protected]).
6. Verify the destination email by clicking the confirmation link sent to your inbox.

All incoming emails to [email protected] will now forward to your personal account for free.

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2. Outbound Transactional Alerts: Mailrise

Many applications (like firewalls, printers, or legacy software) only support SMTP email alerts when notifying you of events. Paying for SendGrid to route these transactional alerts to yourself is expensive.

Mailrise is a lightweight Python-based SMTP server. Instead of sending emails across the web, Mailrise runs locally, intercepts the SMTP emails, and converts them into instant push notifications on your phone (using Discord, Telegram, Pushover, or Slack).

[Legacy App / Backup Task]
            │
      (SMTP Port 25)
            │
            ▼
    [Mailrise Server] ──(Apprise API)──> [Telegram / Discord Push Alert]

Step 1: Install Mailrise Natively

Mailrise is built on Python. Open PowerShell and run:

# Setup virtual environment
python -m venv C:\Server\mailrise-venv
C:\Server\mailrise-venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

# Install mailrise and apprise
pip install mailrise apprise

Step 2: Configure Mailrise

Create C:\Server\mailrise-venv\mailrise.conf. This configuration maps email usernames to notification endpoints:

# Mailrise Configuration File
configs:
  # Any email sent to '[email protected]' will route to your Telegram bot
  telegram:
    - urls:
        - tgram://YOUR_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/YOUR_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID

  # Any email sent to '[email protected]' will route to a Discord webhook
  discord:
    - urls:
        - discord://webhook_id/webhook_token

Step 3: Wrap Mailrise in NSSM

Create the service:

nssm install Mailrise powershell.exe "-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\Server\mailrise-venv\start-mailrise.ps1"

Create the launch script C:\Server\mailrise-venv\start-mailrise.ps1:

cd C:\Server\mailrise-venv
.\Scripts\mailrise.exe -c mailrise.conf -p 8025

Start the service:

nssm start Mailrise

Mailrise now runs in the background, listening for local SMTP connections on port 8025.

Step 4: Test the SMTP Alert Gateway

To test if the SMTP pipeline works, you can send an email via PowerShell:

Send-MailMessage `
    -From "[email protected]" `
    -To "[email protected]" `
    -Subject "Backup Succeeded" `
    -Body "Weekly files backup has completed successfully." `
    -SmtpServer "localhost" `
    -Port 8025

The email will be intercepted by Mailrise, translated into a push notification, and delivered directly to your Telegram bot—giving you a free alert pipeline for any application.

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In the next part, we will replace paid RSS and Read-it-Later services.

Proceed to Part 19: Replacing Paid Read-it-Later & RSS Services (Pocket, Feedly Premium) →