Email monitoring with PRTG
PRTG checks the availability
of mail servers
PRTG monitors performance
and delivery
PRTG checks the contents of backup emails
PRTG comes with preconfigured sensors for POP3, IMAP,
and SMTP
Email monitoring with PRTG
Jump to the topic of your choice
- 5 good reasons to choose PRTG as your email monitoring tool
- An introduction to email monitoring with PRTG
- Email monitoring for backups or inbox
- How to use email monitoring to monitor applications and backups
- Mail server monitoring
- Advantages of mail server monitoring with PRTG
- Using PRTG to ensure emails are delivered
- 3 articles from our knowledge base
- Want to read more?
5 good reasons to choose PRTG as your email monitoring tool
How PRTG defines sensors
In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, e.g. the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, the free space of a disk drive. On average you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.
All-in-one monitoring
With PRTG, you can opt for a license and get access to all the tool’s sensors and monitoring features. Sensors, a notification system, technical support – PRTG is an all-in-one email monitoring tool.
Customizable alarm
The alarm system can be customized according to your own individual needs. You get to specify when – and how – PRTG should sound the alarm. As a result, you’ll only receive messages when it’s absolutely necessary.
Free trial
With PRTG, the first 100 sensors are free and never expire. The free trial version of PRTG is perfect for getting a simple and straightforward feel for our monitoring software. If PRTG meets your expectations, you can then choose a license that works for you.
Preconfigured sensors
PRTG comes with several preconfigured sensors for your email and mail server monitoring, including POP3, IMAP, and SMTP sensors. That makes the setup process both quick and easy.
Extensive monitoring
In addition to email, PRTG monitors all your hardware, virtual environments, and applications. You therefore get an overview of your entire network.
Email monitoring for backups or inbox
Email monitoring for applications such as backup software:
Many administrators use email monitoring so they can constantly check the status of their backups. This is because it’s too difficult to keep an eye on all statuses when so much different backup software (e.g. for virtual environments, databases, and email) is being used. Most backup services send emails to indicate whether or not a backup was successful. But other applications and programs often send important messages by email as well. PRTG automatically checks the contents of all these emails, and can therefore monitor the status of each of your applications.
Find out more about backup monitoring.
Administrator inbox:
Administrators receive messages from backup software in their inboxes. But these messages, many of which arrive during the night, can quickly pile up. If serious problems or malfunctions arise, administrators need to be alerted at once – not just when they get to work in the morning and check their email. PRTG makes this possible by sending out a push notification or an SMS.
A sensor for monitoring your email
IMAP Sensor: The PRTG IMAP sensor comes with special filters and assigns statuses based on certain words or phrases found in emails. For example, PRTG can scan the subject or body of an email for keywords that are defined by you before the respective search.
Your email monitoring at a glance – even while on the go
PRTG is set up in a matter of minutes and can be used on a wide variety of mobile devices.
How to use email monitoring to monitor applications and backups
Step 1
In PRTG, add the IMAP Sensor to the device that represents your mail server, and make sure the application to be monitored is able to send status emails to the corresponding email address.
Step 2
Specify the conditions for which you would like to receive an alarm. Two examples: if you have not received an email for 24 hours from your backup software, or if certain words such as “error” appear in an email.
Step 3
Test your configuration by sending yourself an email with the words that you specified in your filter rules. More detailed instructions can be found here.
Sensors for monitoring your mail server
SMTP&IMAP Round Trip sensor: This sensor uses SMTP and IMAP to monitor the end-to-end delivery of your email.
SMTP&POP3 Round Trip sensor: This sensor uses SMTP and POP3 to monitor the end-to-end delivery of your email.
PRTG comes with several other sensors which use SNMP and other protocols like NetFlow or IPFIX to monitor your servers, thereby providing you with important hardware and performance data so you can eliminate downtime.
Using PRTG to ensure emails are delivered
Step 1
PRTG delivers an email to the mail server (or an email client) via SMTP.
Step 2
The SMTP server delivers the email to a POP3 server (which can be at another location, in the LAN, or on the same server).
Step 3
PRTG checks for emails from the POP3 server every second until the test email arrives.
Practical tip: “Hey Gerald, what would you tell administrators who are looking to monitor their backups?”
“Sometimes it takes a little trial and error before the IMAP Sensor is best configured for your own particular situation. For the sake of simplicity, we recommend setting up a separate email account for each of your backup solutions or applications. You should also use separate mailboxes for your monitoring which cannot be accessed via a client or some other interface. By doing so, you can automatically rule out the sources of many errors, including the erroneous reading of the age of a message. If the IMAP Sensor is still not working according to plan, verify the access data you entered is correct by ensuring that PRTG can log into the desired mailbox, and that emails are arriving there in the first place. Also check the limits of the IMAP Sensor, as these determine when an error or a warning status should be displayed. The text filter you use to categorize incoming emails may also be a source of error. If you use regular expressions, in particular, be sure to check that their syntax allows for the desired text to be picked up by your filters. You can use a free Regex tool such as Regex101 or Regex Pal for this.”
Gerald Schoch, Release Manager at Paessler AG
PRTG makes your job easier
Our monitoring software frees you to focus on other tasks by promptly notifying you of potential issues.
Save effort
PRTG gives you one central monitoring tool for your servers and entire network. Enjoy a quick overview of your whole infrastructure via our dashboard and app.
Save time
Getting started with PRTG is a breeze. Setting up or switching from another network monitoring tool is easy thanks to the auto-discovery and pre-configured device templates.
Save money
80% of our customers report substantial cost savings with network monitoring. Your costs of licenses will likely pay for themselves within weeks.
Trusted by 500,000 users and recognized
by industry analysts as a leader
“Fantastic network and infrastructure monitoring solution that is easy to deploy and easier still to use. Simply the best available.”
“Software is absolutely perfect, Support is superior. Meets all needs and requirements, this is a must have solution if you are needing any form of monitoring.”
“The tool excels at its primary focus of being a unified infrastructure management and network monitoring service.”
“Easy to implement and configure with good technical support.”
R. v. S., ICT Manager at Heinen & Hopman Eng BV
Tip: 3 articles from our knowledge base (KB) for additional support
KB article on backups: How can I monitor backup software with PRTG to be sure my backups were performed successfully?
KB article on multi-part emails: Can I monitor multi-part emails with the IMAP Sensor?
KB article on alerts via SMS: How will I be notified if my mail server is down?
PRTG: The multi-tool for sysadmins
Adapt PRTG individually and dynamically to your needs and rely on a strong API:- HTTP API: Access monitoring data and manipulate monitoring objects via HTTP requests
- Custom sensors: Create your own PRTG sensors for customized monitoring
- Custom notifications: Create your own notifications and send action triggers to external systems
- REST Custom sensor: Monitor almost everything that provides data in XML or JSON format
We asked: would you recommend PRTG?
Over 95% of our customers say yes!
Paessler AG conducted trials in over 600 IT departments worldwide to tune its network monitoring software closer to the needs of sysadmins.
The result of the survey: over 95% of the participants would recommend PRTG – or already have.
Want to read more? Please do!
Exchange monitoring: PRTG monitors Exchange Server availability and performance. Discover in 3 easy steps how to set up your Exchange monitoring, including the sensors you will need to get started.
Mail server monitoring: PRTG monitors the availability and response times of your mail servers. To do so, it uses IMAP, POP3, and SMTP.
Monitor availability: PRTG monitors the availability of your website, network, and servers (including the mail server). It offers a comprehensive overview that is available 24/7, so you can achieve your goal of 100% uptime.
PRTG is also available as hosted monitoring solution (Monitoring as a Service). The cloud based tool is up and running within minutes and offers the full range of preconfigured PRTG sensors. Read more about that here >
Still not convinced?
More than 500,000 sysadmins love PRTG
Paessler PRTG is used by companies of all sizes. Sysadmins love PRTG because it makes their job a whole lot easier.
Still not convinced?
Monitor your entire IT infrastructure
Bandwidth, servers, virtual environments, websites, VoIP services – PRTG keeps an eye on your entire network.
Try Paessler PRTG for free
Everyone has different monitoring needs. That’s why we let you try PRTG for free. Start now with your trial.
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PRTG |
Network Monitoring Software - Version 23.3.88.1421 (October 2nd, 2023) |
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Hosting |
Download for Windows and cloud-based version PRTG Hosted Monitor available |
Languages |
English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese |
Pricing |
Up to 100 sensors for free (Price List) |
Unified Monitoring |
Network devices, bandwidth, servers, applications, virtual environments, remote systems, IoT, and more |
Supported Vendors & Applications |
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Combining the broad monitoring feature set of PRTG with IP Fabric’s automated network assurance creates a new level of network visibility and reliability.