To enable postfix rc.d 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).