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iCloud+'s New Custom Email Domain Feature Now Available in Beta

This email is already in use with another Apple ID..jpg

Apparently you can't use your own domain email if it's associated with another AppleID.

I don't see the logic in this? Apple could host my email (via one iCloud account) while I used that very same email for another iCloud account. Thoughts??

Or even better Apple could just give us a way to merge AppleIDs already!
 
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Minuteman3 said:
For mine, the new outgoing email option appeared automatically in Apple Mail as an option. No need to "add" another account at all. I did find that on the beta.icloud.com site, go to the Mail page and there's a little gear at the top of the left column. There I could update the "send as" line to look better. Clearly this is in beta as it was glitchy for me, but it finally worked.

FWIW - the new outgoing email option also appeared on my iPhone with no action on my part at all. Certainly didn't "add" any new accounts ... it just worked!!:)

As I mentioned before, Outlook does not provide me the new outgoing email address yet. I suspect the same may be true for other 3rd party email clients. They'll probably need to do something to make them work. Incoming mail works fine in OL.

Ken
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this sounds very promising, Ill try again

EDIT: still no luck, I'll give up for now, but really looking forward to this, great addition
 
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RamGuy said:
Hmm, tempting to move my two domains over from Microsoft 365. They just increased their pricing, and their arguments are that it now includes Microsft Teams for free. Well, I only use it for hosting my e-mail and calendar.

The thing holding me back are such details as DKIM, DMARC and SPF. Are security features like these supported? What does Apple use for keeping things syncronised between devices in a efficient manner?

I tested Google Workplace, Fastmail and various others before landing on Hosted-Exchange/Office365/Microsoft 365 for the simple fact that Microsoft with Exchange ActiveSync was much better compared to IMAP, at least when I tested like 8 years ago. With Exchange ActiveSync notifications arrives on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Windows PC simultaneously and once I have read a e-mail on one device the notification gets cleared instantaneously on all devices.

When testing Google Workplace, Fastmail etc that was using IMAP it wasn't simultaneous at all. My Mac might receive a new e-mail and notification several minutes before it was ever showing on any of my other devices and vice versa. It was the same when I mark a e-mail as read. It could take what felt like forever until my other devices registered this change so it would still look like the e-mail was unread for ages on my other devices.

With Exchange ActiveSync all of this worked out ten times better. I supposed IMAP has improved over the years and I expect Apple to at least make sure that all of this works flawlessly when using Apple Mail as the mail application. But I'm still sceptical, I suppose I should just purchase a cheap test domain and test it out to see how it works before moving any of my domains.
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If you just use email/calendar, why not use 365 Pesronal? 70/yr for 1TB OneDrive, Office apps, and if you have a domain just port it to GoDaddy then you can use it with Outlook.com. The cheapest version of iCloud+ will cost you $36 and still have a lot less storage and no office apps. Either way you have to use your own domain.
 
TonyC28 said:
I don't know why I'm so confused by this. So, I have my iCloud email that I've used for years. Now, I can create an alias for that which can be anything I want, but not something already in use by someone else in the world, and then this new alias email will route through my original iCloud email account?
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This is not an alias or a forward. Your iCloud email currently has a @me.com or @mac.com or @icloud.com domain. This new feature lets the iCloud mail server also handle email for another domain, such as "jadedmonkey.com" (another user's example). The DNS system (where you register a domain name) contains an entry for each domain that designates what server handles email for this domain. You modify the domain record to designate the iCloud server as the mail server for that domain. That tells any server that is sending an email to your domain to send it to the iCloud server.
 
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I did some testing today and it seems that plus addressing is not properly implemented. The SMTP servers don't bounce user+plus@domain (i.e., they acknowledge receipt of an email rather than saying tthe user does not exist), but the mail never arrives in the inbox.
 
it still seems kind of clunky, until they allow small businesses to add their domains and create however many names@domain.com, having it tied to a family plan for multiple emails is kind of goofy.

I much prefer iCloud mail over google and other providers, so if they clean this up a bit and make it a bit more open and not limited to domains or emails not used as an Apple ID then that will be great. because a lot of small business that use Apple business tools have to create an Apple ID based on their domain so its quite limiting. apple definitely needs to clean up their Apple ID infrastructure.
 
Add domain works fine, adding any new addresses don't. Get an error message saying it couldn't add it, please try again later...
 
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Saturnine said:
If you can get an e-mail service with custom domain support for $9 a year I'd love to know where please!
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privateemail.com does specials where it's less than $9/year/address. Currently it's $10.10/year

This is great for families and small businesses. Email hosting is ridiculously expensive for what you get, and multiple emails become a per-user-per-month nightmare.
 
AltecX said:
If you just use email/calendar, why not use 365 Pesronal? 70/yr for 1TB OneDrive, Office apps, and if you have a domain just port it to GoDaddy then you can use it with Outlook.com. The cheapest version of iCloud+ will cost you $36 and still have a lot less storage and no office apps. Either way you have to use your own domain.
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iCloud+ is "free" when I already have Apple One is it not? GoDaddy is not a option for me, no way for me to have .no domains on GoDaddy. But Microsoft might have made it possible to use custom domains with Microsoft 365 Personal? Haven't kept myself up-to-date on all of this for a very long time. Not entirely sure if personal gives you features like Exchange ActiveSync?
 
DataChris said:
View attachment 1823154
Apparently you can't use your own domain email if it's associated with another AppleID.

I don't see the logic in this? Apple could host my email (via one iCloud account) while I used that very same email for another iCloud account. Thoughts??

Or even better Apple could just give us a way to merge AppleIDs already!
Click to expand...

Surely this is a BETA limitation? Not being able to have your Apple ID registered using your custom domain is utterly stupid. In what world would I not have my custom domain as my Apple ID?
 
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MacRumors said:


Starting with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey, users with a paid iCloud+ storage plan can personalize their iCloud email address with a custom domain name, such as johnny@appleseed.com, and the feature is now available in beta.

​
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Since this is an iCloud feature, I wonder if it requires iOS15/Monterey? My trusty old 2014 MacBook (with most of the keycaps worn off) won't run Monterey. I'm holding out for the new MacBook with more ports.
 
jclardy said:
I'm surprised they went through the effort of building this, I feel the intersection of people that know how to update DNS records on a domain and the people that want to use iCloud for email is extremely small.

I'd consider it if it wasn't so heavily tied into the Apple ID system - you can't add anyone to your domain email outside of your iCloud "family".
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Maybe a later goal is to make the whole DNS handling hassle much easier?
If Apple could act as a nicely integrated DNS provider for me, providing automatic connection to my email accounts, providing hosting storage, taking care of all the security stuff, etc, I'd be happy to pay them the money I am current paying easyDNS. EasyDNS have done well, and made it as easy as they can, but Apple can do better along multiple dimensions, from automatic billing to my not having to work with both easyDNS and Google to create custom email domains.

I could see Apple gradually moving into services in this space. Why not? There are plenty of people (individuals and small businesses) who want some aspects of a custom domain (eg email, or web hosting) but have ZERO interest in the ten million different bells, whistles and options that you have to deal with when working with any other provider.
This is where Apple excels (compare eg an Airport Base Station to other wifi base stations): Provide a baseline with very little customization that works for 80% of people, provide basic customization in ways that are easy to understand for the next 10%, and don't bother trying to deal with the endless complications of the last 10%.
 
Seeking help! I have my own domain, DanielJones.Rocks, purchased through GoDaddy, and my site is through Dreamhost. I can at least find the MX section on Dreamhost, but it still doesn't want to work... I DO NOT CURRENTLY PAY for an email address/hosting from either Dreamhost or GoDaddy, is that my problem? I followed Apple's instructions, adding a leading period and everything, but I suppose not yet having and paying for an email host is my problem? But doesn't Apple thus take over the hosting with the 10 bucks or so a month I pay for Apple storage?
 
mannyvel said:
privateemail.com does specials where it's less than $9/year/address. Currently it's $10.10/year

This is great for families and small businesses. Email hosting is ridiculously expensive for what you get, and multiple emails become a per-user-per-month nightmare.
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Good to know, thank you. Significantly cheaper than Fastmail. The only drawback I can see is that it doesn't support Apple's proprietary push e-mail mechanism where Fastmail does.
 
c2cali said:
Seeking help! I have my own domain, DanielJones.Rocks, purchased through GoDaddy, and my site is through Dreamhost. I can at least find the MX section on Dreamhost, but it still doesn't want to work... I DO NOT CURRENTLY PAY for an email address/hosting from either Dreamhost or GoDaddy, is that my problem? I followed Apple's instructions, adding a leading period and everything, but I suppose not yet having and paying for an email host is my problem? But doesn't Apple thus take over the hosting with the 10 bucks or so a month I pay for Apple storage?
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Your domain currently has no MX or TXT records set up.

I'd hazard a guess that whatever you added on the Dreamhost portal was incorrect. Either that or the changes you're making on the portal aren't added to their DNS servers instantly. If you post a screenshot of your DNS configuration I'll be able to better advise.

Edit: MX records just appeared and look fine. No sign of the two required TXT records though.
 
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jclardy said:
I'm surprised they went through the effort of building this, I feel the intersection of people that know how to update DNS records on a domain and the people that want to use iCloud for email is extremely small.

I'd consider it if it wasn't so heavily tied into the Apple ID system - you can't add anyone to your domain email outside of your iCloud "family".
Click to expand...

It is but i'm definetly going to do this. I have a domain for fun and I currently use Zoho (free) but I'm inclined to trust Apple's platform more since I'm already paying for storage.
 
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