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[Edited this question due to "unclear what i'm asking"]

So, i'm having the following problem: I need a "thing" (a server, a linux box, a free service, whatever) to forward emails to a list of about 200 people. A small group shall be able to adress this "thing". I'm not searching for a concrete software recommendation, i want to know which would be the best approach to fulfill this task.

I thought of the following things:

  • A linux box that acts as a simple mail server. That would require everyone who wants to distribute an email to this list to set this server up as SMTP on their mail programs. I would appreciate something easier to use for the "sending" group.

  • A program (or maybe a script for thunderbird, is this possible?) that automatically checks a certain, existing mail account for incoming emails and directly forwards them to the list. This would be easy because the "sending" group does not have to set up something but just send an email to the special mail account.

  • An online mail service which - maybe free - does the job. This would only require to set up one or several accounts for the "sending" group. Only thing I don't like on this option is that I don't have the full control over the things happening.

So what do you think is the best option? Or are there better possibilities?

Thanks in advance

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    You can do this in Exchange. But we need to know more about your configuration and you might suggest making sure your question cannot be read as you asking for a software recomendation.
    – Ramhound
    Jul 23, 2014 at 15:18
  • Well, i wanted to ask for a general approach where to search for a solution. I am not familiar with mail services and I have no specific configuration. I want to send simple emails, only text. If this can easily be done on a linux machine, i got one with a dyn ip. As i only need to address about 200 peoble and i don't need any other services, maybe exchange would be something too big for my purposes. If you'd like to offer a concrete software suggestion, a free tool would be very nice.
    – ju.kreber
    Jul 23, 2014 at 15:51
  • Software recomendations are not on topic. So I cannot provide a software recomendation. Your current question seems overally broad.
    – Ramhound
    Jul 23, 2014 at 16:07

1 Answer 1

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Use Mailchimp (http://mailchimp.com) or similar solution. There's really no need to spend time setting this up, when there are many services that'll do it for you for free.

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  • I second this suggestion. setting up a linux box as mentioned in OP's comment is not the method to follow. There are too many open pits and land mines along that road. Setting it up the mail list in that manner might be a relatively simple task, where this will snowball tho is with bounces, spam filters, and delivery problems. If you set it up to use your own mail services you will contantly be fighting topics such as "hotmail" users didn't get the mail but it didn't bounce either, or why does GMAIL call it spam?, or why does comcast bounce my messages? Use a professional mail provider.
    – Tyson
    Jul 23, 2014 at 16:26

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