xMail Business Email

What is xMail and which teams is it for?

xMail is a business email platform run by LIONFIN that combines email, calendar and contact management in a single account; it suits businesses that want not just a mailbox but their team’s whole day-to-day communication in one place. Teams that typically choose xMail:

• Meeting-heavy teams: offices that want to manage shared calendars, meeting invitations and availability in the same account as their email.
• Companies with departments: those who want to run addresses such as sales@ and support@ with aliases and distribution lists instead of separate mailboxes.
• Security-first organisations: those who want two-factor authentication switched on for every user to protect against password leaks.
• Teams preferring a regional provider: businesses that want their email data kept with a provider in Türkiye.

If you need only a few mailboxes, a simple email hosting plan may do; if large quotas and archiving come first, consider the business email plans. In one sentence: email hosting gives you a mailbox, business email strengthens that mailbox with retention and a service level, and xMail adds calendars, contacts and address management alongside it.

Which features do the xMail plans include?

Every xMail plan includes webmail, calendar and contacts, mobile setup and spam/virus filtering; the Business and Enterprise plans add aliases and distribution lists, two-factor authentication, archiving and migration support, and the Enterprise plan includes an SLA and priority support.

The number of accounts and the quota per account vary by plan; current values and the latest feature list are on the plan cards on this page. If you cannot decide, checking which plan your most-used feature starts in speeds up the choice.

How do xMail calendars and contacts sync?

xMail calendars sync over the open CalDAV standard and contact lists over CardDAV; a meeting you create or a contact you save in webmail appears on every compatible device without any extra service. By platform:

• iPhone and iPad: iOS supports CalDAV and CardDAV accounts natively; add calendar and contacts separately from the add-account screen in Settings.
• macOS: the Calendar and Contacts apps support these protocols natively.
• Android: Android does not support CalDAV/CardDAV directly; a sync app such as DAVx⁵ connects them to the phone’s own calendar and contacts.
• Thunderbird: current versions support these protocols for calendars and address books.
• Outlook: mail works smoothly over IMAP; but because Outlook does not natively support CalDAV/CardDAV, use the webmail calendar or the method described in our setup guide for calendars and contacts.

Server addresses and per-user paths are shown in the customer panel under My Services → xMail → Connection Settings.

What are aliases and distribution lists for?

An alias adds a second address to a mailbox; a distribution list delivers mail sent to one address to several people at once. Both let you multiply addresses without opening separate mailboxes or using up extra user slots.

Practical tips:

• Define common variations as aliases so you do not miss mail with typos (for example accounts@ and acounts@).
• Make department addresses distribution lists; when staff change you only update the list membership and the address stays the same.
• Do not make lists that accept outside mail larger than necessary; every spam message is multiplied to all members.

How does two-factor authentication protect an xMail account?

Two-factor authentication asks for a second verification step on top of the password when signing in to xMail; even if your password is captured on a phishing page or in another site’s data leak, it cannot be used on its own to get into your account. An email account is the password-reset gateway for many other services, which makes it one of the most important accounts to protect.

To use two-factor authentication (2FA) effectively:

1. Turn it on first for admin accounts, then for sensitive departments such as finance and HR.
2. Remind users to store the recovery codes given during setup somewhere safe; if a phone is lost, these codes get them back into the account.
3. Check how mail programs and phone apps connect while 2FA is on, following the steps in the setup guide.
4. When an employee leaves, reset the second factor along with the password.

How do you connect to xMail from Outlook and phones?

Mail programs connect to xMail with IMAP (incoming) and authenticated SMTP (outgoing); the standard encrypted ports are 993 for IMAP and 465 (SSL/TLS) or 587 (STARTTLS) for SMTP. Do not guess server names: the values for your account are in the customer panel under My Services → xMail → Connection Settings.

Incoming server (IMAP):  imap.yourdomain.com   (use the value from the panel)
Port / encryption:       993 / SSL-TLS
Outgoing server (SMTP):  smtp.yourdomain.com   (use the value from the panel)
Port / encryption:       465 / SSL-TLS  or  587 / STARTTLS
Username:                the full email address

The server names above are examples only. If you use more than one device, always choose IMAP; POP3 downloads mail to a single device and breaks the sync you set up together with calendars and contacts.

xMail, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365?

xMail is a focused platform that offers email, calendars and contacts on open standards; Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 offer a broad office suite with document editing, video meetings and cloud storage alongside email. The right choice depends on which tools your team actually uses.

If your team already keeps documents in desktop office apps or another storage service, you may not need to pay for a broad suite just for email and calendars.

Which DNS records keep your mail out of spam?

For mail sent with xMail to reach recipients reliably, your domain needs MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records set to the values shown in the panel. If your name servers are with LIONFIN, most of these records are created automatically; if you use another DNS provider, you enter them there yourself.

• MX: routes mail for your domain to the xMail server.
• SPF: declares that the xMail server is authorised to send mail on your behalf. If other systems send mail from your domain (CRM, website), they must all be listed in a single SPF record.
• DKIM: signs outgoing mail; the public key is given in the panel.
• DMARC: tells the recipient what to do when authentication fails; start with p=none, watch the reports, then tighten it.

If problems continue even though the records are correct, the content of the message, the sending volume and the quality of the recipient list also play a part.

How do you move to xMail from another provider?

Moving to xMail from another provider involves creating the accounts, copying mail over IMAP, exporting and importing calendars and contacts, and changing the MX record. On plans with migration support, you plan this process together with our team.

1. Preparation: list the addresses, aliases and distribution lists to move, and build the same structure in xMail.
2. Mail transfer: mail in the old mailboxes is copied over IMAP with its folder structure, while users keep working on the old system.
3. Calendars and contacts: export calendars as .ics and contacts as .vcf from the old system and import them into xMail. This data is not carried by mail protocols.
4. MX change: the MX record is updated at a suitable time; mail that lands on the old server during propagation is moved with a final sync.
5. Devices: the new account is added to users’ phones and computers, and 2FA is switched on.

How do you send application and website mail with xMail?

xMail accounts are for people writing to people; automated mail such as website forms, e-commerce order notifications, invoicing software and server alerts should go through an authenticated SMTP relay rather than a user account. The reasons:

• Writing an employee’s password into an application’s config file puts the email account at risk if that application is compromised; and connecting applications to an account with 2FA on is cumbersome.
• Automated sending can hit the sending limits on user accounts.
• Lots of bouncing automated mail can damage your domain’s reputation and push your employees’ mail into spam too.

LIONFIN SmartHost SMTP relay is built for this job: SPF/DKIM-ready, with sending reports and per-account limits. xMail and SmartHost work together on the same domain; all you need to do is authorise both in your SPF record. We compare when to use a relay and when to run your own server in SMTP relay or your own SMTP server.

How do you choose the right xMail plan for your team?

The right xMail plan is the smallest one that covers your user count with room to grow and includes your most critical feature (2FA, aliases, archiving or an SLA). We suggest looking at features first and numbers second:

1. Security requirement: if you will enforce two-factor authentication, you need the Business or Enterprise plan.
2. Address structure: if you will use department addresses and personal address variations, plans with aliases and distribution lists remove the need for extra mailboxes.
3. Retention needs: if your correspondence must be preserved even when users delete it, choose a plan with archiving.
4. Downtime tolerance: if an email outage means direct business loss, consider the Enterprise plan with an SLA and priority support.
5. Users and quota: finally, add upcoming hires to today’s user count and check the quota per account against how fast your biggest mailboxes grow.

The account and quota values are kept up to date on the plan cards on this page. If you start a small team on the Starter plan and move up later, your mail, calendars and contacts are kept; you do not need to set the accounts up again. If you are unsure, send us your user count and main needs in a ticket and our team will suggest a plan that fits.