How to set up email on your domain

Professional email means messages send and arrive as you@yourdomain.com, not a free Gmail or Yahoo address. This guide walks through the same path xMailCloud customers follow in the Go Live checklist.

What you need before you start

• A domain you control (from GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, etc.)
• Access to DNS settings for that domain
• About 20–45 minutes for first-time setup

Step 1 — Create your account and add the domain

Sign up for xMailCloud and choose a plan that fits your mailbox count. In the workspace:

1. Open Domains and add your domain (e.g. yourdomain.com).
2. Do not change DNS yet if you still receive mail elsewhere — add the domain first so you can copy the exact records we expect.

Step 2 — Publish DNS records

Your DNS host needs four types of records for reliable mail:

Copy each value from the domain console in your workspace and paste at your DNS provider. The Go Live checklist re-checks these live and marks each row pass or fail.

Tip: Lower TTL to 300–600 seconds a day before any major DNS change so updates propagate faster.

Step 3 — Create mailboxes

Create the addresses you need — for example:

• hello@yourdomain.com for general contact
• you@yourdomain.com for personal use
• noreply@yourdomain.com for app notifications

Set a strong password for each mailbox. For apps and phones, create an app password from Mail setup instead of reusing your login password.

Step 4 — Sign in to webmail

Open the webmail sign-in page and enter your full mailbox address and password. You should see Inbox, Sent, Drafts, and other folders once DNS has propagated and mail starts flowing.

Step 5 — Send a test message

Send an email to an external address (Gmail works well). Ask a friend to reply, or send from Gmail to your new address to confirm receiving works too.

In the Go Live checklist, the test send step confirms your outbound path is working and appears in Email activity.

Common issues

DNS checks still failing

• Wait 15–60 minutes after saving records — some hosts are slow.
• Confirm the host name is @ or your root domain, not a typo like www.
• Only one SPF TXT record should exist on @; merge includes into one line.

Mail goes to old inbox after MX change

• Propagation can take up to 24 hours.
• Keep an IMAP import job running from your old provider for a few days to catch stragglers.

Cannot sign in to webmail

• Use the full email address, not just the username before @.
• Reset the mailbox password from the workspace if needed.

Next steps

• Connect your phone with IMAP and SMTP from Mail setup
• Point website forms at xMailCloud SMTP
• See MX, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC explained for deeper DNS detail