[slivanes]

I'm in the same situation as you but I'm undecided, I might still pay the $6/m per user price. If I do so I will be disappointed in myself for paying the danegeld for the convenience.

One tactic I am contemplating is using the Cloudflare Email Forwarder (https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/email-forwarding) - this way I can keep all the custom domain email addresses and groups/mailing-lists and redirect them to the new personal gmail accounts. Only problem is that email replies will originate from the new personal addresses.

[Nemi]

For what it is worth, I ran into the problem of forwarding emails to gmail but having to reply with the gmail address when I setup email for my domain for my personal website. I have a vanity website and wanted to use the domain for email as well, but as little as I use it I did not want to pay even $6 a month for the privilege so I tried both forwarding and having gmail check “other accounts” using smtp.

My web host for my website gives me “free” SMTP services with my hosting so I did initially setup smtp for sending and receiving though gmail, but I ran into a problem where the web host’s smtp servers were often flagged as spam for outbound email, so that sucked. I could get email, but felt like I had to reply using my gmail address to guarantee delivery.

However, I had previously setup outbound email using AWS SES (Simple Email Service) for a different website that sends out transactional emails and had an idea. I setup AWS SES to send out my personal domain emails from gmail and now delivery is great. I rarely have emails flagged as spam. Unfortunately, AWS SES is outbound only, so you cannot use it for both inbound and outbound. I get inbound email to gmail by having it setup to check the web host’s smtp (but you could use forwarding like you mention), and I send outbound email through AWS SES with great delivery results, all through the gmail web client.

Now, this is not a route I would casually recommend. It is arguably a pain in the a* to setup AWS SES. But since this audience here on Hackernews is more of a geek/DIY crowd I thought I would mention it. You can setup AWS SES to send out emails from a personal account for pennies a month. You could arguably setup a Free tier AWS account and never go over the free limits. If you are willing to do some upfront work, it can be dirt cheap to do, and you get to learn the intricacies of email setup like SPF, DMARC, and DKIM.

[stickfigure]

> Only problem is that email replies will originate from the new personal addresses.

You can configure a regular gmail account to send from the custom domain. Visit:

Settings -> Accounts and Import -> Send mail as

You'll have to confirm ownership of the alternate email address, but it works fine. Even if the alternate email address is associated with a Gsuite domain.

[slivanes]

I've looked previously, but it requested SMTP address + username/password. I wouldn't have those because that custom domain email address will be forwarded (receiving only - not send). Am I missing something here?

[precurse]

As long as your spf record allows Google to send mail, you can.

You need to setup an "App password" on your Google account. Then, when you create an alias, you enter smtp.gmail.com and your app password credential as the smtp server.

Here: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157?hl=en

[hrunt]

One problem I have found with this is that the iOS mail app does not have a provision for sending email through a different SMTP server. Has anyone seen a workaround for that? If you send a reply from iOS, even if you have configured the custom-domain email address as an alias on the account, recipients still see "on behalf of ..."

[Macha]

This does have the disadvantage of rendering as "[e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]" in gmail itself.

[Nemi]

If you see my response above, the method I use removes that annoying caveat. Outbound emails are signed and validated using the custom domain through AWS SES and you don’t get “behalf of” label.

[jahewson]

That’s not actually a Cloudflare service though, it’s just an “app” that packages this service:

https://www.eforw.com/

[freedomben]

Use https://forwardemail.net/ . With Gmail You can send from the alias.