Integration · Hetzner Object Storage
Back up email to Hetzner Object Storage — automatically.
Forward any email to your private InboxBucket address and the original .eml is written to your own Hetzner bucket over the S3 API — in a German or Finnish data center, at the prices Hetzner is known for.
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-bucket/inboxbucket/2026/07/0714__invoice-4471__acme-billing.eml
✓ stored · 84 KB · original MIME
Why back up to Hetzner
Your archive on European soil, at Hetzner prices.
EU data residency, for real
Your bucket lives in Falkenstein, Nuremberg, or Helsinki, operated by a German company under European law. When GDPR or a client questionnaire asks where the email archive is, the answer is one word: Europe.
Low prices, no fine print
Hetzner built its reputation on undercutting the big clouds. Object Storage keeps that habit: a flat base price with storage and traffic already included, and cheap rates beyond it.
Trusted by people who check
The self-hosting crowd has run its servers on Hetzner for decades — and if yours are already there, your email archive sits in the same account, next to the rest of your infrastructure.
How it works
Pick the tile, paste four fields, forward.
Add your Hetzner bucket
Choose the Hetzner Object Storage tile in InboxBucket, then enter your endpoint, location, key pair, and bucket (details on the right).
Get your address
We hand you a private inbound address whose only job is receiving:
[email protected]Forward anything
Send one message by hand or set an auto-forward rule; moments later the original .eml is an object in your Hetzner bucket.
What you'll need to connect
- Endpoint
- https://fsn1.your-objectstorage.com (https://<location>.your-objectstorage.com)
- Region
- the location, e.g. fsn1
- Access key + secret
- S3 credentials generated in the Hetzner Cloud Console under Object Storage
- Bucket
- your backup bucket name
Everything comes from the Hetzner Cloud Console. Hetzner Object Storage is S3-compatible, so under the hood it's the same connector as Amazon S3 — with the endpoint and region preset for Hetzner.
The access we ask for
One key pair, one project.
You generate an S3 key pair in the Hetzner Cloud Console and paste it into InboxBucket. Worth knowing: Hetzner scopes keys to a Cloud project, not to a single bucket — every bucket in that project is reachable. The clean setup is a dedicated project holding only your backup bucket, so the key can touch nothing else. On our side, the pair is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM.
We're the pipe, not the vault. A message passes through us on its way to Hetzner and is gone; your dashboard runs on metadata — sender, subject, date, status — and nothing more. Delete the key in the Console whenever you want. Every .eml already in the bucket stays exactly where it is.
- Scoped to one Cloud project — use a dedicated one for your backup bucket
- Stored encrypted at rest — AES-256-GCM on our side
- Delete the key anytime — your .eml objects remain
The details
Built like a backup should be.
The email, not an export of it
Each message becomes one .eml object in your bucket — the raw RFC 822 bytes as they arrived, headers and attachments intact. Any mail client or text editor opens it.
Attachments land in one piece
Big files go up with S3 multipart, so a heavy PDF or a folder of scans arrives complete in Falkenstein instead of bouncing off a request-size cap.
Retries can't duplicate anything
Mail servers resend and people forward twice. Every message is deduplicated on its Message-ID, so your bucket gets exactly one object per email.
No silent losses
If a write to Hetzner fails, it queues and retries until it lands — with its status shown in your dashboard, and a clear notice if the key pair stops working.
Your key pair, sealed
The access key and secret you paste in are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. Delete them from the Hetzner Console whenever you like; the archive stays yours.
A bill that stays predictable
Hetzner's flat base price already includes a storage and traffic allowance, and .eml files are small — years of mail rarely move the needle.
FAQ
Hetzner backup, answered.
What endpoint and region do I use for Hetzner Object Storage?
The endpoint follows https://<location>.your-objectstorage.com — for example https://fsn1.your-objectstorage.com for Falkenstein. The region field is simply that location: fsn1 (Falkenstein), nbg1 (Nuremberg), or hel1 (Helsinki). Use the location your bucket was created in; a mismatched location is the most common cause of connection errors.
What credentials does InboxBucket need for Hetzner?
An S3 key pair — an access key and secret key you generate in the Hetzner Cloud Console under your project's Object Storage section. One honest caveat: Hetzner keys are valid for every bucket in the same Cloud project, not per bucket. For least privilege, keep your backup bucket in a dedicated project (or restrict access with a bucket policy). The secret is shown only once at creation, so copy it right away.
Where does my email archive physically live?
In the location you choose: Falkenstein or Nuremberg in Germany, or Helsinki in Finland. Your archive sits in a European data center run by a German company — a straightforward answer if GDPR or data residency questions come up. InboxBucket itself keeps only metadata (sender, subject, date, status), never message bodies.
Is backing up email to Hetzner the same as Amazon S3?
Under the hood, yes — Hetzner Object Storage is S3-compatible, and InboxBucket writes to it with the same connector it uses for AWS. In the app you just pick the Hetzner Object Storage tile and the endpoint and region are preset. If you're comparing destinations, the Amazon S3 setup covers the same mechanics.
What format are the backups in?
Plain .eml — the raw RFC 822 message exactly as it arrived, with headers, body, and every attachment in one portable file. It opens in Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or a text editor. Nothing proprietary, nothing to convert if you ever leave.
Is Hetzner email backup free?
InboxBucket's Free plan covers one storage connection and 100 emails a month with full-fidelity .eml backup, so you can start on Hetzner without paying us anything. Hetzner bills you separately: a low flat base price that already includes an allowance of storage and outgoing traffic, which an email archive rarely exceeds.
Free plan · No credit card
Put your email in a bucket in Europe.
Connect your Hetzner bucket, get your address, and the next email you forward becomes a .eml in a German or Finnish data center — storage you pay Hetzner for, and fully control.
Add your Hetzner bucket