Integration · DigitalOcean Spaces
Back up email to DigitalOcean Spaces — automatically.
Forward any email to your private InboxBucket address and the original .eml is written to your own Space over the S3 API — in the same DigitalOcean account as the droplets and databases you already run.
Free plan available · No credit card required
- From:
- Acme Billing <[email protected]>
- To:
- [email protected]
- Subject:
- Invoice #4471 — June services
- Files:
- invoice-4471.pdf
s3://your-space/inboxbucket/2026/07/0714__invoice-4471__acme-billing.eml
✓ stored · 84 KB · original MIME
Why back up to Spaces
The archive that lives beside your stack.
Next to what you already run
If your droplets, managed databases, and side projects live on DigitalOcean, your email archive can too — one account, one control panel, one bill, no new vendor to onboard.
One flat, predictable line
A Spaces subscription is a single monthly base with a generous storage and outbound transfer allowance built in. Years of .eml files barely dent it, and the bill doesn't wobble when your mail volume does.
Developer-simple, CDN included
Spaces speaks the S3 API and ships with a built-in CDN at no extra cost. Create a Space, cut a scoped key, connect — the whole setup is a few minutes of clicking.
How it works
Point it at your Space, then forward.
Add your Space
Pick DigitalOcean Spaces in InboxBucket's storage picker and enter your endpoint, region, Space name, and a Spaces access key (details on the right).
Get your address
You receive a private inbound address that only receives mail:
[email protected]Forward anything
Forward a message by hand or set an auto-forward rule; moments later the original .eml sits in your Space.
What you'll need to connect
- Endpoint
- https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com (https://<region>.digitaloceanspaces.com — without the bucket name)
- Region
- your Space's region slug, e.g. nyc3
- Access key + secret
- a Spaces access key (Spaces Object Storage → Access Keys)
- Bucket
- your Space's name
Everything comes from your DigitalOcean control panel. Spaces is S3-compatible, so this is the same connector as Amazon S3 — pointed at your Spaces endpoint.
The access we ask for
A limited key, scoped to one Space.
When you create a Spaces access key (Spaces Object Storage → Access Keys), choose Limited access, select just your backup Space, and grant Read/Write/Delete — the narrowest permission Spaces offers that can still write, since there's no write-only tier. Skip full-access keys: they can list, create, and configure every bucket in your account, which is far more than a backup pipe needs. A dedicated Space keeps the blast radius small.
We're the pipe, not the vault. Mail passes through us only on its way to your Space; the key and secret are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, and what we keep behind your dashboard is metadata — sender, subject, date, status — never the messages. Revoke the key anytime in the control panel, and every .eml already written stays in your Space.
- Limited key scoped to one Space — the rest of your account stays out of reach
- Credentials encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM)
- Revoke the key anytime — your .eml objects remain
The details
Built like a backup should be.
The raw message, kept raw
Every email becomes a .eml object in your Space — the exact RFC 822 bytes, headers, body, and attachments in one file that opens in any mail client or a plain text editor.
Attachments land in one piece
Big files go up with S3 multipart, so a 40 MB signed contract arrives as a single intact object instead of tripping a request-size limit.
Forwarded twice, stored once
Mail servers retry and people double-forward. We deduplicate on Message-ID, so each message is written to your Space exactly once.
Failures you can see
If a write fails, it queues and retries with its status shown in your dashboard — and if the Spaces key stops working, you get a clear prompt to swap it, not silence.
An allowlist for scraped addresses
Inbound addresses get harvested eventually. A per-sender allowlist means only mail from senders you've approved is archived — spam never reaches your Space.
Keys treated like secrets
The access key and secret you paste in are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. We hold what we need to write to your Space, and nothing about it is stored in the clear.
FAQ
Spaces backup, answered.
What endpoint and region do I use for DigitalOcean Spaces?
The endpoint is https://<region>.digitaloceanspaces.com — for a Space in NYC3, that's https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com. Leave the bucket name out of the endpoint; InboxBucket addresses your Space by name in a separate field. The region is just the slug from the endpoint (nyc3, fra1, sgp1, and so on). Spaces runs in DigitalOcean datacenters across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, so pick the Space's own region.
What credentials does InboxBucket need for Spaces?
A Spaces access key, created in the DigitalOcean control panel under Spaces Object Storage → Access Keys. Choose Limited access, select only your backup Space, and set the permission to Read/Write/Delete — that's the narrowest scope that can still write, since Spaces has no write-only tier. Avoid full-access keys: they can list, create, and configure every bucket in your account, which is far more than a backup needs. We also recommend a dedicated Space just for your archive.
Does restoring my email archive from Spaces cost anything?
Your Spaces subscription already includes a sizeable monthly outbound transfer allowance shared across your buckets, with the built-in CDN drawing from the same pool. An email archive is tiny next to that allowance, so pulling back one message — or all of them — typically stays inside what you're already paying for.
Is backing up email to Spaces the same as Amazon S3?
Under the hood, yes — Spaces is S3-compatible, so InboxBucket writes to it with the same connector it uses for AWS, pointed at your Spaces endpoint. The practical difference is where it lives: one DigitalOcean account alongside your droplets and databases, on one flat subscription instead of itemized AWS billing.
What format are the backups in?
Every email is stored as a .eml file — the original RFC 822 message with headers, body, and attachments in a single portable file. It opens in any mail client or a text editor, decades from now, with no InboxBucket account required. Nothing proprietary, nothing to export.
Is Spaces email backup free?
InboxBucket's Free plan covers one storage connection and 100 emails a month, so you can archive to Spaces without paying us anything. Spaces itself is a flat monthly subscription from DigitalOcean that bundles a generous storage and outbound transfer allowance — an email archive uses a sliver of it, especially if you're already subscribed for other projects.
Free plan · No credit card
Put your email in your own Space.
Add your Space, get your address, and the next email you forward lands in the same account as the rest of your stack — as the original .eml, under a key you control.
Add your Space