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iCloud+'s New Custom Email Domain Feature Now Available in Beta
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I have my own domain and email hosted elsewhere for it, and this new functionality has really confused me. I get it now that people are technically explaining it, but for a while there was no information, and I knew too much about how domain and email hosting works to figure out what Apple meant with their early announcements. I still don't know why I'd ever use it - I guess to save money because I wouldn't need to my email elsewhere and I'm already paying for iCloud+.
I successfully got it working with one of my domains--I am very familiar with MX records and DKIM and such.
But: My other main domain mostly works, but I cannot add the one email address I need to add! It, and only it, gives me a "Couldn't verify your email" error.
Very frustrating!
It may be because the email address in question used to be my iCloud username before I switched my iCloud username to just be an iCloud email address.
ps: I agree the instructions are likely to be very confusing for people not used to DNS records, and they are incorrectly worded at one point--telling people to "copy exactly" some text, when in reality you need to put different text into different fields in the CName record, and not copy the part of the text that tells you what field to put it in. Unless other registrars have a different interface than Namecheap.
But: My other main domain mostly works, but I cannot add the one email address I need to add! It, and only it, gives me a "Couldn't verify your email" error.
Very frustrating!
It may be because the email address in question used to be my iCloud username before I switched my iCloud username to just be an iCloud email address.
ps: I agree the instructions are likely to be very confusing for people not used to DNS records, and they are incorrectly worded at one point--telling people to "copy exactly" some text, when in reality you need to put different text into different fields in the CName record, and not copy the part of the text that tells you what field to put it in. Unless other registrars have a different interface than Namecheap.
It's telling you that you have to change them...at least it does have a verification step to see if you've done it correctly.
I do the same exact thing. It’s not practically different. Instead of you forwarding emails, iCloud+ will actually host the sending and receiving of emails to and from your email attached to your custom domain.
If all you are doing is forwarding to your gmail, you would benefit from this, because right now if you reply to any of those emails, you will be sending the email from your gmail. If you set this up (properly), you can actually reply from your email@customdomain.com email address. You’ll look all professional! 😎
It all dumps to your standard inbox.
If I was a betting man, I would put a few quid on Apple exploring iApps for business.
Both Microsoft and Google have their offerings with Google Apps and Office 365. Both offer collaboration features in their suites and full integration with E-mail and messengers.
Apple has a lot of pieces of the jigsaw already in place. The iWork apps. Real-time collaboration. Messages. FaceTime. From a business perspective, it’s lacking the integrated wraparound, administration elements and business tailored email at the moment.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if this isn’t a way of “trialling” one of the features that would be required to start on-boarding businesses by using “less important” personal users.
For small to medium size businesses that primarily use Apple devices, it would make a lot of sense for them not to have to rely on Google Apps or Office 365 and instead use Apple services.
Both Microsoft and Google have their offerings with Google Apps and Office 365. Both offer collaboration features in their suites and full integration with E-mail and messengers.
Apple has a lot of pieces of the jigsaw already in place. The iWork apps. Real-time collaboration. Messages. FaceTime. From a business perspective, it’s lacking the integrated wraparound, administration elements and business tailored email at the moment.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if this isn’t a way of “trialling” one of the features that would be required to start on-boarding businesses by using “less important” personal users.
For small to medium size businesses that primarily use Apple devices, it would make a lot of sense for them not to have to rely on Google Apps or Office 365 and instead use Apple services.
Functionally not very different for you as a user. The difference really is you're not forwarding the email from your own domain to anyone else. When someone sends you an email, behind the scenes, it looks up that address, and routes it to Apple's email servers directly. You then use your Mail client directly with Apple's servers hosting the data for that email account. When you send mail, it sends directly from that account. With your current-state forwarding example, that inbound email looks up the address, sends it to wherever your domain is registered, who then forwards it to a separate account at gmail (with it's own separate email address). Reply's then usually would come from the separate gmail account.
Agree, some of the record entries are not copy and paste. You need to understand your DNS hosting platform and how entries are put in so you get it right.
Hmm, so your accounts are now hosted on Apple's machines. That'll save me a bit of hosting $$. Is there a limit to the # of domains you can host?
The point of custom domains not forwarding, but to make it so that you send emails canonically "from" your domain. Not, by the way, as an alias--Google allows you to send "from" alternate domains, but that is not the same--these are often just aliases, emails sent in this way are much more likely to be flagged as phishing or spam. You need to change your DNS records to verify what email servers you're going to use.
With forwarding, you get an email to one service and then, obviously, it forwards to another. With proper custom domain support, you just use the one email service and your email is not forwarded.
Tried setting this up and all going well until the verification email - tried a number of times and still not received. (Other mail to the domain is being delivered okay).
Anyone else seeing this delay?
Anyone else seeing this delay?
Never used a wildcard before, but just set it up and removed a few aliases because of it. Thanks for the tip!
this is my situation. i'm paying google to host my @snagabag.com email...i don't make use of any of the other google apps features...would be nice to eliminate that cost.
Owning a domain just means you own a domain. It does not include email necessarily--just the ability to add information about what email you use. Many registrars do provide email, maybe as an add-on, and most include a minimal email setup that lets you set up forwarding address. In any event, the MX records in your DNS for the domain specify what email service you're going to use.
I have 3 email accounts in Fastmail with my domain, iCloud wouldn't let me set up one so guessing it's because my son uses it for his iCloud / Apple ID.
Just a word of warning: Gmail does allow you to send from aliases. Those are very different--you're not really sending "from" your custom email address, but still from Gmail, and Gmail recipients will even see "from blah@gmail on behalf of blah@custom" or something. Apple is doing this the right way! (Though I am annoyed that I can't add my email address for unrelated reasons.). It's just that the right way is complicated. the right way also looks more professional to recipients and is less likely to get your emails flagged as spam or phishing.
Anyone got this working on iPhone yet?
I set it ip on beta.iCloud and the Monterey mail client is sending and receiving from me@mydomain.com as it should
but iOS15 mail client sending via iCloud smtp server is sending from me@icloud.com
wonder if we need a later iOS beta for this?
could not find any “known issues” documentation
I set it ip on beta.iCloud and the Monterey mail client is sending and receiving from me@mydomain.com as it should
but iOS15 mail client sending via iCloud smtp server is sending from me@icloud.com
wonder if we need a later iOS beta for this?
could not find any “known issues” documentation
Does it let you add it at all, and then it fails the verification?
At first, I couldn't even add it. Now it fails verification. Not sure if a change to my DNS caused that (seems unlikely) or it's because I removed the email as an alternate contact method. It still doesn't work either way.
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It's clearly not live yet. Google domains won't recognize apple's mx servers.
