Custom Email (Free)

Buy a domain, for example at Namecheap. Custom email will be routed to a Gmail adress.

Lets assume we own

  • domain: www.johndoe.com
  • gmail: johndoe@gmail.com

With the above we can create custom email adresses like info@johndoe.com or me@johndoe.com or bills@johndoe.com 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 ‘johndoe.com’ account and in the sidebar select email. Select Routing Rules and Create adress

  • Custom address: ‘info’
  • Action: ‘Send to an email’
  • Destination: johndoe@gmail.com

and Save.

Test if it is working, send an email to info@johndoe.com (from any account except johndoe@gmail.com!). Check if it is received at johndoe@gmail.com

Now comes the tricky part. If you want to reply to an email it must come from ‘info@johndoe.com’ and not from johndoe@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’

  • Name: John Doe (or whatever you like)
  • Email: info@johndoe.com

Next

  • SMTP server: smtp.gmail.com
  • Username: johndoe@gmail.com
  • Password: Paste here the app password you just made

Add account and check your johndoe@gmail.com and confirm the link.

Done 🙂

Now send a new email to info@johndoe.com and when received (in johndoe@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.

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