You want a professional email address with your new domain name to start your communication right away. Here is a free way to do it!
You own the domain name of your dreams and want to start right away without the hassle of getting a hosting provider and all the other technical mambo jumbo.
In the next paragraphs, we will do just that. Set up your email service on the new domain for free. Let’s get to it!
Requirements
To go through with the configuration, we will need:
- The new domain name and access to the management side of it (the place where you bought it from)
- A free Gmail (google mail) account that you own
- A free account on Cloudflare
The setup
We will go step by step and work on all aspects of your free, new professional email address. Let’s make some notes on terms, before we begin, to help simplify things further:
- awesomedomain.net is your new domain
- your Gmail (google mail) account is John@gmail.com
- the goal is to create free, functional, professional email addresses, like contact@awesomedomain.net, john@awesomedomain.net, etc.
1. DNS provider and Domain provider configuration
We need first to go to Cloudflare and register our domain, to configure and manage the DNS zone.
So, after login we need to add our website:
1.1. After login click on “Add a site”
1.2. Input the name of your domain
1.3. Select “Free plan” (you can upgrade later if needed)
1.4. Take note of the nameservers on this page (copy them in a notepad/text editor)
Now we have registered the domain in Cloudflare and taken note of the nameservers needed for our configuration:
- connie.ns.cloudflare.com
- rodney.ns.cloudflare.com
1.5. Next we need to use this information in our registrar – the place where you bought the domain from either Namecheap, GoDaddy, etc.
Locate for your domain the “edit nameservers section”, where you will need to put only the two nameservers from the above section (even if you could get four or more input fields). Save.
2. Make sure you can receive your emails
Let’s go back now to Cloudflare and set up the incoming email part.
2.1. Login and select your new domain, and after that, choose the “Email” option from your left menu.
2.2. On your next screen you will see the MX (mail DNS records) needed to route your emails. Click on “Add records and enable”.
2.3. After that is done, on the next page navigate to “Routes” and click on “Add destination address”
In the pop-down window, you will use your Gmail account. Click save, and check your Gmail inbox for a verification email with a verification link from Cloudflare. Click on that link and verify your destination email address.
2.4. After the destination email is verified, go back to Cloudflare on the same page (reminder: Home →Your domain →Email →Routes), and on the “Custom addresses” click on “Create address”
On the Custom address field, you will have john or contact or whatever you would like in front of @ sign of your email address.
On the action part, you will be able to select the verified email address from before, in the “Destination address” field. That being said, after you save, your professional emails will arrive in your Gmail inbox.
Well, now you can receive emails on your brand new email address, on your great domain. But what about sending them? We will cover that next 🙂
3. Make sure you can send emails as well 🙂
To send emails we will use google/Gmail SMTP, but we will need to authenticate to it without a “normal” password.
Let’s get started!
3.1. Navigate to https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords and choose Mail and the device you are doing the setup on – a Mac or a Windows computer I assume, but the “other” option should work as well.
Click GENERATE and copy the password generated in a notepad/textfile.
3.2. Add the email address in Gmail → navigate here https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/accounts and, on the “Send mail as” section, click on “Add another email address” and a popup will appear.
Enter your professional email address, and your name, and go to the next step.
You will be presented with the next screen where you will need to change the settings.
- SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com
- Port: 587
- Username: Enter your Gmail address used in the setup John@gmail.com
- Password: Enter the app password which we generated in the previous step.
After you click “Add account”, a verification email will be sent to the professional email address (will be forwarded to your Gmail account), and that will be used to authorize the new account creation, either by clicking on the link, or using the code provided in that email.
Now all your emails sent to that address will be forwarded/routed to your Gmail account, and you will be able to reply to them from Gmail by changing your “From” address to the one created.
3.3. Take a break and enjoy your new free professional email account.
Before you go…
I use this setup on all my projects because it is simple, reliable, and scalable with zero costs. You do not need hosting, or email subscriptions, to kick start your ideas, and one proof of concept for that, is above.
Now I will have some coffee too 🙂