Forwarding or mailbox: setting up email on your subdomain

Forwarding or a real mailbox

Forwarding takes the mail that arrives at an address on your name and leaves it in an inbox you already have. Nothing is stored here, you read it where you always read it, and it works on every plan.

A real mailbox is an account of its own. The mail lives on our server, you reach it over IMAP or through the webmail, and you can send from it. It comes with the Starter plan, one of 1 GB, and with the Pro plan, three per subdomain and three gigabytes each.

Set up forwarding

Forwarding is per address, not catch-all. You create the exact names you want and everything else bounces, which is what keeps the spam down.

1. Open your subdomain and go to the mail section.
2. Add a forward, the part before the @ on the left and the destination address on the right.
3. Confirm the destination. We'll send it a verification link, because otherwise anyone could push mail into an inbox that isn't theirs.
4. Send yourself a test. It should land within seconds.

What forwarding cannot do

You can't send from a forwarded address. When you reply, your mail client uses your real account and whoever is on the other side sees your real address. If the point was to keep that address private, forwarding doesn't do it.

Forwarded mail can also fail SPF at the destination. When we pass the message on, the envelope sender is still the original one, and a strict receiver can read that as a forgery. Large providers usually manage, small ones or ones with aggressive filters sometimes don't, so mail that matters shouldn't be forwarded blind.

There's no catch-all either. An address you never created doesn't arrive, it bounces. It's on purpose, but it means a typo in a printed address is lost mail and not recoverable mail.

A real mailbox

A mailbox fixes both problems. It can send, over SMTP on port 587, so the address on your name is the address people see, and it forwards nothing, so there's no extra hop where SPF can fail.

You have a webmail you open from the panel with one click, and the same account works in any IMAP client. Its password is different from your does.software one and needs at least 12 characters, because it's a credential a mail client stores.

1. In the mail section, add a mailbox and pick the name before the @.
2. Set its password. You won't see it again, so keep it where you keep your passwords.
3. Open the webmail from the panel, or point your mail client at it over IMAP with the full address as the username.

The limits

Forwards per subdomain go with the plan, one on the free plan, five during the trial, ten on the Starter plan and twenty on the Pro plan. Mailboxes come with the Starter plan, one of 1 GB, and with the Pro plan, three per subdomain and three gigabytes each.

A mailbox and a forward can share a name, and the mailbox will win, the mail will be delivered there and won't be forwarded. If you want both behaviours, use two different addresses.