Roundcube Webmail: The Complete Guide to Setup, Features, and Customization

Roundcube is a browser-based email client. It provides easy access to manage emails via a web interface.

Roundcube can be installed in two ways: either by deploying it with Docker Compose or by directly installing it on an Ubuntu server for a more hands-on approach.

Why Use Roundcube Webmail

Here are some of the key features that make Roundcube stand out as an email client:

• User-Friendly Interface: Roundcube interface is easy to use, minimal, and modern.
• IMAP and SMTP Support: It supports both IMAP and SMTP protocols, ensuring compatibility with most email servers.
• Multiple Email Accounts: Users can configure multiple email accounts within the same interface and switch between them easily.
• Web-Based: All you need is a browser to access your emails. This makes it a convenient option for users who often need to switch devices.
• Extensible and Customizable: Roundcube is open source. With access to hundreds of its plugins, you can customize it to your liking.
• Address Book: Having an address book is crucial for email management.  With its address book integration, you can import existing contacts as well as create a new contact manually.

Prerequisites

To proceed with this tutorial, you’ll need:

• An Ubuntu Server: This tutorial uses the Ubuntu 22.04 server but for the most part, it should work on other modern versions as well.
• Docker and Docker Compose (for Method 1): If not installed, you can install them with the commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker docker-compose

Method 1: Setup Roundcube with Docker Compose (Recommended)

Docker containers encapsulate all the necessary dependencies to ease the overall setup process. Here’s a working docker-compose.yml file to launch the Roundcube webmail with thunderbird_labels, show_folder_size, and tls_icon plugins.

version: '3'

services:
  roundcubemail:
    image: roundcube/roundcubemail:latest
    container_name: roundcubemail
    volumes:
      - ./www:/var/www/html
      - ./db/sqlite:/var/roundcube/db
    ports:
      - 9002:80
    environment:
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DB_TYPE: sqlite
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SKIN: elastic
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_HOST: "ssl://imap.yandex.ru"
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SMTP_SERVER: "ssl://smtp.yandex.ru"
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_PORT: 993
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SMTP_PORT: 465
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_COMPOSER_PLUGINS: "weird-birds/thunderbird_labels,jfcherng-roundcube/show-folder-size,germancoding/tls_icon:^1.2"
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_PLUGINS: thunderbird_labels, show_folder_size, tls_icon

Here’s an explanation of what each environment variable refers to:

• ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SKIN: It tells what theme to use for the interface. Elastic is the modern theme for Roundcube. Classic is an older, more basic theme.
• ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_HOST: The default IMAP hosts that Roundcube will look at and try to connect. 
• ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_PORT: IMAP port number.
• ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SMTP_SERVER: This SMTP server will be utilized to send emails. 
• ROUNDCUBE_SMTP_PORT: SMTP port number.
• ROUNDCUBEMAIL_COMPOSER_PLUGINS: These add-ons can enhance the email experience, customizing appearances and features to Roundcube. These plugins further need to be enabled with the ROUNDCUBEMAIL_PLUGINS variable.
• ROUNDCUBEMAIL_PLUGINS: ROUNDCUBEMAIL_COMPOSER_PLUGINS only installs the plugin while the ROUNDCUBEMAIL_PLUGINS variable activates those plugins.

Your email provider will provide details regarding the IMAP server, IMAP port, SMTP server, and SMTP settings. So, based on your email provider, you need to adjust these variables. Also, you need to note what encryption your email provider offers. It might be SSL/TLS.

To deploy this docker-compose file, ensure you have first set up docker and docker-compose.

docker --version && docker-compose --version 

Start the docker service:

systemctl start docker

Deploy the docker-compose.yml file:

docker-compose up

It might take 2-3 minutes to get Roundcube running on <your-server-ip>:9092. To start managing your emails, enter the login credentials provided by your email server. 

If you’re using Gmail or Outlook, the username will be your email address along with @gmail or @outlook suffix.

After a successful login, you’ll get to see a similar interface.

Method 2: Direct Install on the Ubuntu Server

Roundcube is a LAMP stack application. It’s written using PHP and supports multiple database backends, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. 

Step 1: Install PHP and Apache

Before installation, update the list of available packages and their versions.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install php apache2

You need to install and enable some PHP extensions as well.

sudo apt install php-mbstring php-xml php-imap php-sqlite3 php-json php-curl php-zip php-gd php-intl

Here’s a list of what each extension does:

• php-mbstring: Provides support for multi-byte character encodings
• php-xml: Adds ability to work with XML documents
• php-imap: Allows to establish connections with IMAP server 
• php-sqlite3: PHP adapter to talk to SQLite database
• php-json: Handles JSON encoding and decoding
• php-curl: Allows sending HTTP requests via curl binary
• php-zip: Handles reading and writing of zip files
• php-gd: Provides image manipulation capabilities
• php-intl: Provides support for multiple languages, cultures, and regional preferences

Step 2: Download the Roundcube Source code

You can download the source code from https://roundcube.net/download/. To facilitate deployment, choose the Complete Stable Version.

Download the application in the /var/www directory.

cd /var/www
sudo wget https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/releases/download/1.6.10/roundcubemail-1.6.10-complete.tar.gz

Step 3: Extract and Assign Permissions

One simple way to allow Apache to read from and write to the document root is to change ownership to www-data user.

sudo tar xvf roundcubemail-1.6.10-complete.tar.gz
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data roundcube-1.6.10
cd roundcube-1.6.10

Step 4: Setup the Configuration File 

The config file determines what plugins will be in use, which interface and skins will be in use, what SMTP and IMAP server the email client will connect to, etc.

Make a copy of the default config file (first, ensure your current directory is /var/www/roundcube-1.6.10):

sudo cp config/config.inc.php.sample config/config.inc.php

Open the config file and edit these important settings i.e. the database connection, IMAP server, and SMTP server.

sudo nano config.inc.php

Here’s a sample config for the Outlook email server. You need to adjust db_dsnw, imap_host, and smtp_host as per your email provider. This configuration uses an SQLite database for simplicity.

$config[‘db_dsnw’] = ‘sqlite:////var/www/roundcubemail-1.6.10/config/db.sqlite?mode=0640’;
$config[‘imap_host’] = ‘ssl://imap.office365.com:993’;
$config[‘smtp_host’] = ‘ssl://smtp-mail.outlook.com:587’;

If you want to use some plugins, you need to download them manually in the plugins directory or use Composer to manage plugins. Then enable the config file as:

Step 5: Configure Apache 

Create a new file roundcube_site.conf under /etc/apache2/sites-available with the contents:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/roundcubemail-1.6.10
    # ServerName roundcube.CHANGEME_YOURDOMAIN.com  # Replace it

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    <Directory /var/www/roundcubemail-1.6.10>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

   # Block access to the database
   <FilesMatch "\.sqlite$">
    Require all denied
   </FilesMatch>

</VirtualHost>

Enable the newly created Apache site:

sudo a2ensite roundcube_site.conf

Disable the default Apache site as it might cause the issue:

sudo a2dissite 000_default.conf

Restart Apache to load changes:

sudo systemctl reload apache2

Step 6: Launch and Install

Finally, you can launch the Roundcube interface simply by visiting the IP of your server. It’ll ask for Username and Password. You can get those credentials from your email provider.

Troubleshooting

A quick tip, in case the setup is not working, inspect the errors.log file.

Also, inspecting the Apache access.log and error.log files can provide additional clues.

tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log
tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log

Multi-account management

To add additional email accounts, switch to the Settings tab, select Identities, and then click on the Create icon.

Import Contacts

You can import all your previous contacts from a vCard or CSV file. To do so, head over to the Contacts tab and click on Import icon on top.

If you want to import CardDAV, add composer plugins roundcube/carddav. 

Collected Recipients will bring a list of contacts that had been previously contacted. Similarly, Trusted Senders will bring a list of a sender.

Useful Roundcube Plugins

It’s worthwhile to mention some of the popular plugins :

• Larry: The Larry theme.
• Contextmenu: It enables right-click context menus on various parts of interfaces.
• Gravatar: Fetches gravatar images for the email.
• Identity_switch: Lets you switch to different user identities from a single session.
• Advanced Search: Search through emails in a quick and fast way.
• Sauserprefs: It fights spam in your mailbox.
• Calendar: Provides calendar integration.
• Roundcube_caldav: CalDAV allows managing events on central calendar systems like Google Calendar.  It’s a must-have plugin for efficient team collaboration.
• Identity SMTP : It lets you set SMTP configurations for different identities.
• Carddav: This plugin provides a standard way to store and import contact information in a vCard format.
• Customizr: This lets you customize logos and styles.
• Fail2ban: Shows the number of failed attempts. 
• Html5_notifier: It sends you desktop notifications for any email activity.
• Thunderbird_labels: Assigns a tag to emails.

Roundcube Alternatives

If you didn’t like the Roundcube experience, there are other alternatives to consider.

• Horde Webmail: Horde offers an integrated suite of applications such as email, calendar, and task management together. It provides enhanced productivity for team collaboration.
• Zimbra Webmail: Zimbra is available in two different versions i.e. open source and commercial. It’s known for enterprise-grade security, spam filtering, and two-factor authentication.
• Rainloop: It features a sleek and modern design. It requires no database to set up. Rainloop is known for its simplicity.
  

Roundcube Webmail: Is It the Right Fit for You?

Roundcube offers hundreds of plugins to customize the experience. With its docker deployment, the Roundcube mail client can be deployed within a matter of a few minutes.

If you’re comfortable with server management and need a lightweight, open-source webmail solution, Roundcube could be a perfect fit for you. However, if you require more advanced features or don’t want the hassle of self-hosting, you might want to consider other options.