To enable postfix startup script please add postfix_enable="YES" in your rc.conf If you not need sendmail anymore, please add in your rc.conf: sendmail_enable="NO" sendmail_submit_enable="NO" sendmail_outbound_enable="NO" sendmail_msp_queue_enable="NO" And you can disable some sendmail specific daily maintenance routines in your /etc/periodic.conf file: daily_clean_hoststat_enable="NO" daily_status_mail_rejects_enable="NO" daily_status_include_submit_mailq="NO" daily_submit_queuerun="NO" If you are using SASL, you need to make sure that postfix has access to read the sasldb file. This is accomplished by adding postfix to group mail and making the /usr/local/etc/sasldb* file(s) readable by group mail (this should be the default for new installs). If you are upgrading from postfix version prior to 2.0, please see the README files for recommended changes to your configuration.