Null SMTP Server
For some time now I’ve wanted an efficient way to be able to send myself rich email without having to waste a lot of bandwidth; so I wrote what I call a “null” SMTP server.
It’s a dotNET application (written in C#) that sits in the System Tray and “talks” SMTP.
You point your mail client’s outbound SMTP to localhost (127.0.0.1), it say “OK” to just about everything, and throws away the message (well — internally I have a logging method, but right now I don’t expose that)… doesn’t sound really useful does it?
How do I use it?
Easy; I setup an IMAP account that uses this as the send path, and the IMAP server as the receive path — Windows Mail (or Live Mail) will send the message (which throws it away basically) and then upload a copy to my “sent” folder. I cut down on my bandwidth (and time) and still get a copy of the email I wanted. In case you’re wondering, I use email to “record” lots of information (contents of web pages; to do list items; etc — since my IMAP server stores the messages in a format that Windows Desktop Search can index it makes it a snap for me to manage large amounts of information — and it by it’s very nature is shared… yes I could use OneNote, but previous to 2007 it’s clunky and it doesn’t share the information without a SharePoint server — and I already have an IMAP server, and already archive some of my email).
Here’s a link to the installer for it; I haven’t heavily tested either the installer or the applet — but I’m using it.
Remember to set your outbound SMTP connection to localhost (127.0.0.1); you don’t want authentication or SSL / TLS (I don’t support them — and won’t).
Originally posted 2008-10-21 21:00:21.
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