Deploy and Host Mailstead on Railway

Self-hosted email portal for small teams, backed by Resend for delivery and inbound mail.

About Hosting

Mailstead runs as a single Docker service with a persistent volume at /data (SQLite database and mail blobs). A background worker process handles inbound webhooks, outbound sends, and scheduled jobs. Attach a Railway public domain; PUBLIC_URL is set from RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN.

Why Deploy

Own your mail UI without running a full mail stack (Postfix, Dovecot, etc.)
Resend handles deliverability and inbound receiving; Mailstead stores and presents mail
Admin + per-user mailboxes for 10–50 users
Ops dashboard at /ops/ for storage and worker health

Common Use Cases

Team shared hosting on your domain via Resend
Internal notifications inbox with a simple web client
Staging or production portal next to your app on Railway

Dependencies for

Deployment Dependencies

You provide	Purpose
`RESEND_API_KEY`	Resend API (send + receive APIs)
`MAIL_DOMAIN`	Domain verified in Resend
`ADMIN_RECOVERY_EMAIL`	Password reset delivery

Generated at deploy: SECRET_KEY, APP_ENCRYPTION_KEY, BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN. Optional: DATABASE_URL for Postgres instead of SQLite on /data.

First deploy

Deploy and wait until healthcheck passes (/healthz recommended on Railway).
Open https:///setup/ once (token is in service variables).
Create users and mailboxes in Admin (/admin/).
Configure Resend DNS for MAIL_DOMAIN and register webhooks (scheduled job or admin).

Volume

Do not remove the /data volume unless you intend to wipe mail storage.

Health

Liveness: /healthz
Readiness: /readyz (includes worker heartbeat)

Source

GitHub: mabounassif/mailstead