I'm thinking of writing an email server that accepts all usernames and just forwards the mail to the main inbox.

Or at least forwards a huge list of usernames to the main inbox.

You know, for spamming shit conveniently.

This way, user1@spam.com, user2@spam.com, and user3@spam.com will all go to the same inbox without actually needing to register any of those users.

It would be like having an email with infinite aliases.

Is there something like this already or do I need to implement SMTP?

Such emails are called catch-all emails.

improvmx.com allows such stuff, it's popular, don't know about safety.

@theabbie safety is... well... they save the email, queue it for forwarding then send + delete if it is delivered or retried a few times.

But 🤷‍♂️trust is in the eyes of the beholder.

@C0D4 Since it's for spam protection, you won't use the email for anything important, so, it's safe.

As for @AlgoRythm, @theAbbie is right you need to setup a catch all and a forwarder.

I haven't had to do this myself my hosts typically do it for me.
Maybe good ol' @linuxxx or @condor has set it up before?

@F1973 sending emails to any "user"@example.com and receiving them at mailbox@example.com

Where "user" could literally be anything from abc to xyz or "***" and the email is still received.

Without setting up endless mailboxes 😎

@F1973 yea pretty much, now so it on a self hosted mail server 😏

didn't know you needed a server for this, always thought it could be accomplished with dns records.

just did some research and i am wrong. however it looks like google domains and namecheap both allow you to set email forwarders for your domain from their consoles. seems like the easiest way to me, as you don't need a server.

i use namecheap and all i had to do for my personal website was set a catch-all redirect to go to my gmail account.

come to think of it, having username@devrant.com forward to any email would be a cool devRant ++ feature

@F1973 but you won't get mail sent to FloydIsANicePerson@gmail.com because it was obviously registered by someone else called Floyd

@F1973 really? i've looked online and didn't find that that was possible. care to share any resources?

https://forwardemail.net/

This is also a good service to accomplish your task