Set up local SMTP and POP3 for testing mail send and receive loop

Question

I would like to have alternate SMTP and POP3 servers on my local machine, for testing code that sends mails and waits for a response, even when I'm offline. GPRS rates in SA are quite prohibitive, so I try and avoid them where possible. I would like to have a test SMTP address instead of my routine Google one, and that SMTP server must be able to send mail to my local POP3 server, where my mail client can retrieve that mail.

How can I go about this on Windows 7 Home Premium?

Answer 1

I'm assuming your program that sends email can specify the smtp server address.

If so, then you need to install your own personal mailserver and configure your program to use localhost (127.0.0.1) as your smtp server. (When I say personal, I mean in the sense that you want something which does not have heavy system requirements.)

Years ago (before broadband and gmail) I used Surgemail (from http://netwinsite.com/surgemail/) on my home computer (It was free for up to 5 users)

But there are loads or others, for example http://www.hmailserver.com or Mercury 32 (from http://www.pmail.com/overviews/ovw_mercwin.htm)

You might think this is overkill, as these programs will probably do much more than you need, but I was surprised at how much they can do without needing a high spec machine. (From example, I was probably running Surgemail on a Pentium III with 1Gb of Ram)