Frequently asked questions

Billing is prepaid. You top up your account yourself whenever you need to; Mailfront deducts the fees from your credit. There is no automatic debit, no subscription and no minimum term.

• Domain: €1.00 per month (standard price, VAT included)
• Storage: €0.10 per started GB of storage used per month (VAT included)
• Mailboxes, aliases, webmail and chat: included (fair use)

Individually agreed prices may differ. For existing customers, the price shown under Account applies. Reseller terms are agreed individually as net prices.

Mailfront uses prepaid credit and has no lock-in. If you no longer want to use Mailfront, remove your domains in the panel or send us a short message in text form (for example by email or support ticket).

Back up important emails, attachments and chat content before removing active domains or mailboxes. After the end of the contract, mailbox and chat data is deleted according to the privacy policy. Unused credit that you paid in is refunded on request.

The usual flow is:

• Open E-Mail Domains in Mailfront.
• Add the domain.
• Set the displayed DNS records at your DNS or domain provider.
• Check in Mailfront whether the DNS values are detected.

DNS changes can take some time depending on the provider. Mailfront can verify them once they are publicly visible.

The public base values are:

• MX: 10 mail.mailfront.biz.
• SPF: v=spf1 mx ~all
• DMARC: v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@<domain>

Replace <domain> in the DMARC value with your own domain. DKIM values are shown per domain under E-Mail Domains when available.

Check these points first:

• Were the records set at the authoritative DNS provider for your domain?
• Do name, type and value exactly match what is shown under E-Mail Domains?
• Are there multiple SPF or DMARC TXT records that conflict with each other?
• Has enough time passed for DNS caches to update?

If Mailfront shows live values, compare them with the expected values in the domain view.

In short:

• SPF defines which servers may send email for your domain.
• DKIM cryptographically signs outgoing email.
• DMARC tells receivers how to handle messages that do not pass SPF or DKIM checks.

These records improve deliverability, but they do not replace good sender reputation or clean sending behavior.

The browser webmailer is the fastest way in and needs no setup.

Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail and mobile mail apps connect via IMAP and SMTP. Manual settings:

• IMAP server: mail.mailfront.biz
• IMAP port: 993
• IMAP security: SSL/TLS
• SMTP server: mail.mailfront.biz
• SMTP port: 587
• SMTP security: STARTTLS

Use your full email address as the username. Thunderbird and Outlook are configured automatically via Autoconfig and Autodiscover depending on your DNS configuration.

As the password you can either use the mailbox password or create a dedicated app password for each mail client under Security in the webmailer. An app password is shown only once and can be revoked there too.

The terms are intentionally separate:

• Mailbox: a mailbox with login and storage.
• Alias: forwarding from one address to one or more destination addresses.
• Identity: sender address for send as inside a mailbox.

To send as another address, create an identity for the mailbox. An alias alone is not enough.

There are two common ways to use catch-all:

• Edit the domain and set the Catch-All Adresse.
• Alternatively create an alias with local part *.

Catch-all can be useful, but it also accepts mistyped or unwanted messages. Use it deliberately.

Mailfront is intended for customers who need email hosting with data stored in Germany. Public FAQ answers intentionally do not include internal infrastructure details.

For contractual or data protection details, contact support.

The Customer API is intended for provisioning workflows, for example for agencies, hosting providers or internal customer portals.

Typical API resources include domains, mailboxes, aliases, identities and DNS status. Reseller terms are agreed individually.

• Register with an email address and your name, without a credit card or bank details.
• No domain or storage fees are charged during the trial.
• You can see the end of your trial under Account.
• After that, each domain's monthly billing period starts. Fees are deducted from the credit you top up yourself.
• If you do not want to continue, remove your domains before the trial ends. No costs are incurred.

• The invitation and later notifications always come from the platform sender chat@notify.mailfront.biz. The text shows your visible profile name and profile address.
• The email contains no chat history and no attachments – only a notice and the link.
• External people cannot start a conversation themselves. They only reply in chats they were invited to, as long as their participation is active.
• The external chat page supports text messages. External participants currently cannot send or open attachments there.
• External participants can unsubscribe from notification emails. The chat itself is kept.

Opening the link creates a session for that device. Several devices are possible and show the same chat.

A link becomes invalid immediately when the 24 hours have passed, the person is removed from the conversation, the conversation is permanently deleted, or the link is revoked on the server. Links are stored only as a hash, not in plain text.

• Every login is its own chat participant. The main account does not automatically see the chats of mailbox logins and vice versa.
• Externally, several logins of the same customer can show the same profile (name or company plus the main account address).
• A linked email is visible only as context. Anyone without access to the mailbox sees neither the subject nor the content of that email – chat never grants mailbox permissions.
• Messages are transmitted encrypted (TLS) and stored on our servers in Germany. Mailfront does not offer end-to-end encryption.

• Groups can contain internal profiles and external email addresses.
• The original direct chat remains a separate conversation.
• Owners can add and remove participants. Removed people no longer see new messages.
• In groups, messages from others always show the sender's name. System notes such as “Anna was added” appear as a subtle line.

• New messages usually appear without reloading. If the live connection drops, the app checks for updates regularly.
• You enable push notifications per device. They only contain a short notice; the content is loaded after sign-in.
• Email notifications to external participants are briefly bundled so that not every single message triggers an email.
• Mailfront does not guarantee real-time delivery, for example when a device is offline or a push service is delayed.

For images and videos, Mailfront creates small previews. The original is only loaded when you deliberately open or download it. Files are checked before they are released. Retracted messages and permanently deleted chats make their attachments inaccessible.

• An archived chat reappears in the list as soon as someone else writes.
• In a direct chat, active internal participants may permanently delete it; in groups, the owners. The action requires explicit confirmation.
• You can edit your own messages or retract them for everyone within 15 minutes. Notification emails that were already sent cannot technically be recalled.

• Direct customers: direct and group chats, external invitations, “Discuss in chat”, notifications and attachments are included. Several mailboxes do not create a staff directory.
• Resellers: every enabled staff member has their own private chat access and can show their own profile. Authorised staff find each other in the internal directory of the same reseller. Customers of other resellers never appear there.
• If a staff member changes role or leaves, a successor does not automatically receive their private conversations.