📧 Customized Domain Email = Personal Branding + OpenWeb
Why would you need a domain email?
Surely there’re numerous out-of-the-box email service providers. Why would you want an email at your own domain? It is common for companies to have their unique email account, for branding and managing purposes. For people like you and me, domain email would help your personal branding, and more importantly the free to transfer between mail service providers. Domain email comes at zero price, yet paying tribute to the Open Web. I would use my shawnxli.com and [email protected] as an example throughout the passage.
Why Yandex?
Yandex is a Russian Google counterpart. Yandex Connect’s email service meets all my expectations: stable, secure, fast, ad-free, domain email, import/export data, email alias, mass storage, calendar, synchronize, push, IMAP, two-step/ two-factor verification, Yubikey, email forward and filtering… even for advanced security features like SPF, DKIM, DMARC support are all there. Offered at $0 for the individual.
0. Prerequisite
- A domain (I bought my domain from Tencent Cloud at the price of ~$15 for three years, available to transfer after 60 days.)
- Patience to follow the instructions
1. Acting as the main Yandex Account
1.1. Sign-up the main Yandex Account
1.2. Add and verify your domain
First, add a DNS TXT record at your domain DNS service provider, delete when the domain is verified.
Then add an MX record at your domain DNS service provider
1.3. Create a user account
Taken my account for example:
Email: [email protected] Department: All employees Grant admin rights (Optional)
1.4. Set a catch-all address routing
This is meant to redirect all the emails sent to invalid email addresses on your domain.
2. Acting as the user Yandex account
2.1. Log-in the user account
Enable IMAP and POP3 at: Mail → All settings → Email clients
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- Enable app passwords
- Set up two-factor authentication
3. Set Gmail to send and receive email
Mail server address: smtp.yandex.com
Connection security: SSL
Port: 465
Account: [email protected]
Password: your-account-password or app-password
Mail server address: pop.yandex.com
Connection security: SSL
Port: 995
Account: [email protected]
Password: your-account-password or app-password
4. (Optional) Advanced Security/ Anti-Spamming Setting
- SPF (Not Recommended, Why?)
- DKIM, DMARC