Custom Email Free

First thing to do is buy a domain (for example at Porkbun).

The new custom email will be routed to an exisiting Gmail adress. Lets assume we own:

With the above we can create custom email adresses like [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected] etc.

These custom email adresses we will set up via Cloudflare

TODO: In a future tuturial how to set up the Cloudflare account

In the Cloudflare account dashboard select the ‘mydomain.com’ account and in the sidebar select email. Select Routing Rules and Create adress

  • Custom address: ‘info’
  • Action: ‘Send to an email’
  • Destination: [email protected]

and Save.

Test if it is working, send an email to [email protected] (from any account except mydomain@gmail.com!) and check if it is received at [email protected]

Now comes the tricky part. If you want to reply to an email it must come from ‘[email protected]’ and not from mydomain@gmail.com. Therefore you need a Google ‘app password’.

In Gmail go to ‘manage your Google account’ and Security. Switch on 2-Step Verification. Enter your phone number and confirm with the received code. Next, to get an app password click here Type any name (example gmail smtp). Copy the generated app password. Go back to your Gmail ->; Settings (cog wheel) and ‘See all settings&’. Go ‘Accounts and Import’ -> ‘Send mail as -> Add another email adress’

Next

  • SMTP server: smtp.gmail.com
  • Username: [email protected]
  • Password: Paste here the app password you just made

Add account and check your [email protected] and confirm the link. Done 🙂

Now send a new email to [email protected] and when received (in mydomain@gmail.com) reply it. Check the ’email from’ in the replied email. To send an email from any of the adresses: In your gmail ‘Compose’ and in ‘From’ you can select which email adress to use.

Why like this? You have now (max) 200 email adresses for free. If you do it via godaddy or namecheap or other you pay like 5 dollar a month. Read next Creating a blog with Hugo