Connect your own domain to Mail

Mail hosts email at your own domain, such as you@example.com. A domain belongs to Personal or the selected team. Mail has three pages under Mail in the sidebar: Inbox for reading and writing (Read and send mail), Addresses for the mailboxes and aliases a domain receives at (Add mailboxes, aliases and a catch-all), and Domains. Inbox closes the sidebar; if you can change the team's mail, Addresses and Domains are at the top right of Inbox.

Add a domain

Mail needs a paid plan: Pro for Personal, or the Team plan for a team. A team admin chooses Add domain on Domains, or on Inbox before any mailbox exists, and enters the domain. The domain's page then opens.

DNS and Mail use the same domains. Adding a domain that is already in DNS turns Mail on for it and keeps its setup. If Magpie already hosts its DNS, Mail's records are added to it automatically.

Choose how to connect it

Under Connect, the domain's page shows the nameservers the domain uses now and two ways to connect it. Nothing is copied or changed until a team admin chooses one:

• Add records at its current DNS provider (Use records): add a verification record and the MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records where the domain's DNS is managed now. Its other records stay as they are.
• Change its nameservers to Magpie's (Use nameservers): Magpie hosts all of the domain's DNS, including its website, any other email service and every subdomain, and adds the Mail records itself.

Until the domain is verified, Use records instead or Use nameservers instead switches method. Switching from nameservers to records deletes the records filled in for the domain on Magpie; nothing changes at its current DNS provider.

Add records at the current DNS provider

After Use records, DNS records lists every record to add, in the order to add them: verification, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, then Incoming mail (the MX record). The line above the list names the nameservers where the records go. Each row shows the record's type, its name with the full name beside it, its value with Copy, and its status. @ means the domain itself.

Statuses are read each time the page opens, and Check records reads them again without leaving the page. The domain is verified as soon as Magpie finds the verification record, and the verification row then leaves the list. The verification value does not change, so it is always shown.

• SPF: the value shown is the complete record to publish. If the domain already has an SPF record, the value keeps its entries and adds Magpie's. Needs updating or More than one means replace the existing SPF record with the value shown: a domain can have only one.
• DMARC is marked Optional. Mail works without it.
• Incoming mail shows the domain's current MX records. Change it last, after the domain has a mailbox. Until then, mail sent to the domain is refused.

Mail signs each message it sends with the domain's DKIM key. Mail services that receive it check the domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, so a record shown as Not found or Wrong value can send your messages to recipients' spam.

Use Magpie's nameservers

After the nameservers change, Magpie's nameservers answer for the whole domain and the current DNS provider is no longer used. Any record Magpie does not have stops working, and changes made at the previous provider have no effect.

1. Under DNS records, choose Import current records to import the domain's existing records from its current nameservers, add them yourself with Add record, or both. Nothing is imported until you choose it. An import can take a few minutes, and the page shows the records when it finishes; records you add meanwhile stay. Most DNS providers do not send a complete list of records, so Magpie looks up the names most domains use, the subdomains listed in public security-certificate logs, and every name that an imported record points to. A subdomain with an uncommon name and no certificate can be missed. The page says how the records were found, lists names whose records could not be read, and lists records Magpie cannot publish.
2. Compare the list with the records at the current DNS provider. Add a missing record with Add record, and remove any that are not needed. Stop importing stops an import and removes what it brought in, Remove imported records removes every imported record you have not edited (Undo puts them back), and Import again replaces the imported records. Records added on the page stay. Get started above the records lists these steps; Hide takes it away.
3. Nameservers shows the two to use. Where the domain is registered, replace its nameservers with those two, and remove any others.
4. When the domain's registry lists them, Magpie publishes the records and verifies the domain. Magpie checks for the change automatically; Check nameservers checks immediately and shows the result on the page.

If DNSSEC is on for the domain at its registrar, turn it off there first. Magpie does not sign domains, and a domain whose registrar still lists DNSSEC stops resolving for resolvers that check it.

Once Magpie hosts the domain, its records are changed on its page in DNS. See Host and manage DNS for a domain, which also covers a nameserver change Magpie does not find.

Move incoming mail from another provider

If the domain already receives mail at another provider, keep it arriving there until the mailboxes you need exist in Magpie:

• With Magpie's nameservers, the domain's existing MX records stay in place after the change once they are imported or added on the page. Incoming mail on the domain's page names the mail server it still uses. Add the mailboxes on Addresses, then choose Move mail to Magpie.
• With records at the current DNS provider, add the mailboxes first and replace the MX record last.

New mail then arrives in Magpie. Messages already at the previous provider stay there; Mail does not copy them. A sender that looked up the old mail server recently keeps using it until its saved copy of the record expires.

DNS and websites at the domain

The band DNS and websites at the domain, on its page, says where its DNS is (hosted by Magpie, waiting for the nameserver change, or at another provider with its nameservers). It lists every website, Store or Link-In-Bio List at an address under the domain, with whether each is live and a link to its Custom domain page. The domain's DNS page and each Custom domain page use the same words.

Remove a domain

The bottom of a domain's page says whether it can be removed:

• While it has mailboxes or addresses, it says how many and links to Addresses. Remove them there first; a mailbox can be removed only when it holds no messages.
• While a website, Store or Link-In-Bio List is connected at an address under the domain, it links to that page's Custom domain page. Disconnect it there first.
• Once nothing stops it, a team admin chooses Remove domain.

If Magpie hosts the domain's DNS, change its nameservers to another DNS provider where the domain is registered before removing it. To remove it while its nameservers still point to Magpie, tick the box confirming that the domain stops working: its website, email and every other record stop resolving until its nameservers change. Records that another Magpie service manages also stop removal; disconnect that service first. A removed domain can be added again later.

For help with a domain, its nameservers or its DNS values, Contact support.