For quite some time, I have been using Gmail as my email program. Recently, I discovered a great Gmail feature that lets you brand your email address. For example, if you have a Gmail account and your email address is johnsmith@gmail.com, you can now use your own domain to create an email address such as john@johnsmith.com and still use Gmail as your email program.
Assuming that you have already registered your domain name, here’s what you do:
- Go to your domain registrar control panel and create an email forwarding account for your domain (most registrars, like Godaddy, offer this feature for free with your domain registration).
- Decide what your branded email address will be (for example, john@johnsmith.com) and forward it to your Gmail address. You do this by filling up two fields in your domain registrar’s email forwarding control panel:
- In the “Add Forward” field, type in the left portion of your branded email address, in this example john.
- In the “Forward Mail To” field, type in your current Gmail address: johnsmith@gmail.com.
If this is not very clear and you’re using Godaddy, this page will give you more details on how to implement email forwarding.
- Log on to Gmail.
- Click on Settings (you’ll find the link in the top right corner).
- Click on Accounts.
- Click on Add Another Email Address.
- Add your new, branded address: john@johnsmith.com
- Click on the Next Steps button.
- Click on the Send Verification button. Gmail will now send you a message with a link that you must click to verify that in fact you own your branded domain. Since in step 2 you have already forwarded your branded address to your Gmail address, the verification email will be automatically forwarded to your regular Gmail address.
- Open the verification email and click on the verification link. You’re almost done.
- Go back to the Accounts tab of the Settings menu (see 4 and 5). You should see your new branded email address already listed there.
- Click on the link that says ‘make default’ next to your branded address.
- Check the radio button next to “always reply from my default address”.
That’s all. You should now be ready to use Gmail with your own branded email address. If you want more details, you can visit Gmail’s custom domain help page.
Wouldn’t a better option be to use Google Apps instead? Sure, it takes a bit longer to set up (only tricky part is getting your dns settings right), but it works great. You still get all of gmail (and google docs) but all in your domain, no forwarding (and a few other things).
I use it both for my own website and our company’s email and it’s great.
@Tomas Restrepo: yes, Google Apps is probably the best overall option, but the forwarding route is less technical and probably easier to implement by most people.
Thank you very much for this information that Gmail was unable to provide. It is just what I wanted.
I am just an avarage computer user with only 30 years of experience as programmer (yes 30) and 12 year of web ploughing so I was not able to find how to set up a Google Apps, even following the link in Google/Account settings . Their help just stinks.
I stick to your solution and wait for help on setting up Apps to materilaize.
Thanks again.
Thanks a lot for this post. I’d search in SE about this and found your post. I’ll do the way u wrote. Thanks
Thanks for this info. I also recommend using a Google Apps account because otherwise if you use your gmail account and send thru webmail, any email you send from there will have as its ‘from’ address: youraddress@gmail.com on behalf of yourname@yourdomain.com.
by this method, can we configure our own email to send mails by outlook.
How can I send mails from my personalised mail address though outlook if I am using the presented method of getting mails in gmail.?
Thanks for this walkthrough..exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!
Jeez, just POP fetch your email into gmail.
fantastic, thanks.
Very helpful. There are probably easier ways, but this is simple enough for me. Thanks!
This is very helpful, but does anyone know how to take it one step further — how to change the “reply to” address so that the person receiving the email doesn’t realize they’re replying to a gmail address but rather thinks they’re replying to your hosted domain? Thanks…..
Lizzie – this seem to be available now.
If you got to Gmail – Settings – Accounts and import – Then click edit on the line containing your send mail as address.
Click next in the window that pops up.
On next page you have this option:
“Send through *****.net SMTP servers (recommended for professional domains – Learn more)”
Fill in the info provided by your email (domain) host.
Save changes.
You will get an error if you did something wrong.
OK, this isn’t working for me. I’m using Godaddy and I can get it set up, but it just says “pending setup, validating MX record.” How do I change that setting in gmail so it will work?
I use google apps but it’s a shame that not all features available in a normal google account are available in a google apps account – such as Picasa.
Hi, nice article. The only limitation that shold be mentioned regards the google calendar. With this method, John Smith’s clients will receive emails from johnsmith@johnsmith.com but calendar appointments will still come from johnsmith@gmail.com. Does anybode know of a way to make google calendar use an alternate address as well? L.E.E.