Guide
Get an email address with your domain name
Facts checked Oct 9, 2026
An email address with your domain name, like you@yourbusiness.com, needs an email service plus a few settings on your domain. Here's how to choose and set it up.
Which kind do you need?
- Forwarding: you only need to receive
- Mail sent to hello@yourbusiness.com lands in the inbox you already have. Some domain companies include it free. No separate inbox, and replies come from your old address.
- Email from your web host or domain company
- Often included with hosting, or cheap. Usually the quickest to set up, because they already run your domain's settings. Fewer extras.
- A business email service
- A mailbox per person, with calendars and shared files, for a monthly fee per person. The best choice when several people share the work.
Shared addresses like info@ or office@ don't need their own paid mailbox on most services: set them up as an alias or a group that delivers to the right people.
The steps, in order
- Find who runs your domain's settings (its DNS). Who hosts this website? shows your domain company, your DNS and any email already set up. You'll need that log-in.
- Check for email that's already there. Email check says where mail to your domain goes now. If someone already gets email at this domain, moving it cuts them off unless you plan for it.
- Sign up and create every mailbox first, for everyone who gets email at the domain, before you change any settings. Then nothing gets lost in the switch.
- Add the records the service gives you at your domain's settings page (often called DNS, DNS records or zone file). Many services offer to add them for you if your domain company supports it. Usually:
- TXT to prove the domain is yours
- MX: where your mail is delivered. Remove the old MX records, or mail can go astray.
- SPF and DKIM: they prove your email comes from you, so less of it lands in spam
- DMARC: what other mail servers should do with fakes. Stop your emails going to spam explains all three.
- Wait, then test. MX changes can take up to 72 hours to reach everyone. Send an email to the new address from another account, reply to it, then run Email check again.
- Add it to your phone and computer using the service's own app or setup page, and update your email signature.
Your website keeps working. Email records are separate from the ones that point to your website, so changing them doesn't take the site down. Leave the other records alone.
Keep control of it
- Sign up in the business's or organization's name, with an address you'll still have if a person leaves.
- Give two trusted people the admin log-in, and turn on two-factor authentication.
- Your email lives on your domain: if the domain lapses, the email stops too. See Domain name expired?
- Taking over from someone who set it up? The handover checklist covers email.
Send this to your web person
Not sure what to say? Copy this into an email, add your website's address, and send it.
Hi, We'd like email addresses with our domain, [your domain], for example [name@your domain]. We need [the number] mailboxes and [any shared addresses, like info@]. We're thinking of [forwarding only / email from our web host / a business email service]. Could you: - tell us if anyone already gets email at this domain - create the mailboxes before changing anything - add the MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, and remove the old MX records - leave the website's records as they are - tell us when it's live, and how to set it up on our phones Thanks