techsupport

If you're not sure what you're doing yet, do NOT start by hosting a mailserver at home. It will only lead to headaches and frustration, especially if your household is depending on those mails working reliably from day one.

Way back 2008-2012 I had a server running on a “slice”, the early virtualization tech. Since I was running a complete linux system, having outgrown shared or managed hosting, I figured I’d run my own mail server.

It mostly worked fine but overall was way more work than it was worth. It’s complex software. You can end up dealing with misconfigurations that are tough to figure out, spam bans, security threats, and the worst for me - upgrades that break everything and then you don’t have email u til you spend hours fixing it. And since it’s complex, and that would only happen once a year or so, it took a lot of effort since I wouldn’t remember what I did last time.

So, I ended up switching to a mail host. Way easier, works all the time. If there’s a problem they get to be the ones to fix it, and they’re surely better at that than I am since I didn’t set out to be a mail server specialist.

This is a big question and this is just a short reply.

Buying a domain allows you to move email provider without needing to change the address.

Start with the 5GB plan with the domain you bought.

DO NOT BUY the domain from the email provider. Make the two completely separate. Otherwise you might lose control of your own domain.

Don't worry about migrating historical email until you're happy with whatever you set-up.

Once it's all running, you can then go about setting up self hosting, but I'd think twice before self-hosting email. There's a lot of scope for your email being blocked by recipients.

Another way to go is use Gmail and redirect email from your domain to Gmail (or any other provider).

You can use something like Proton mail or Tuta (among others) with a custom domain pretty easily. All you need to do is add a couple DNS records to the domain on the registrar's admin page. Both of the services I mentioned have detailed step by step instructions on how to do this.

Hetzner is a good recommendation. Look at the webhosting packages, they all contain mailboxes and a domain and you can upgrade if the space is not enough.

I would not use a .cc domain, but look for something more reputable like .com or, if he is in Germany (as web.de suggests) .de. I would strongly advise against running a mail server on your own. There is some work involved keeping it secure and also playing nice with all receivers (don’t want his emails being flagged or even deleted as spam).

That said, if he is applying in Germany, a web.de email is absolutely fine. Lots of people use that here.