DIY Email setup
It sounds like a trivial question, but how do you setup an email address?
In some cases you might get email bundled as a service from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) who you buy your broadband from. Alternatively many people will opt to use one of the many web based email platforms like gmail, yahoo, or Outlook etc. Or you might even do both.
Both these routes can work well, and are very simple to setup. They are often also "free" (at least in the sense it is less obvious how you are paying for them!)
Why DIY?
While using web mail or your ISPs default mail service may seem like the "path of least" resistance, there are some down sides getting your email service like this.
ISP bundled email
Using the ISP service usually means that the ISPs name is included in the "domain" bit (i.e. what comes after the "@") of your email address. That means that "your" email address is tied to the ISP domain name. If you change ISP, then you potentially lose access to your email address as well.
ISP bundled email services might only have limited storage capacity, limiting how many messages you can hold in your mailbox at one time. An ISP service may also not allow creation of multiple email addresses.
Webmail
Email accounts with webmail providers, probably have more storage capacity than one included from your ISP, but again they will often include the name of the provider in the domain - meaning that you don't "own" the address and can run into the same problem losing the address if you move to a new provider.
Alternative ways to get email?
A popular way to get an email service is to register your own internet domain name, and the add a service to that.This article explains why you might want to do that, and then goes through step by step what you need to do.
Advantages of using your own domain
Using your own domain means that you "own" the name - you still need to rent the domain, and renew it every year or so - but generally you can keep it for as long as you want. You can also change email providers at will, but still retain the same email addresses, and create email solutions that exactly match your needs.
You also get to present a more professional, or a more personal "brand" to the world...
"equiries@rapidplumbers.com" will present a more professional image than "rapidplumbers@aol.com", and "joe@theretiredfisherman.co.uk" might be more relatable to your friends than "joebloggs243@gmail.com"
Having your own hosted email can also be a little bit more secure - since it is less obvious to the casual viewer where they can go to try and login to your email!
You will likely be able to get large mailboxes, multiple mailboxes, and also some handy extras like creating address aliases (i.e. new email addresses that forward to one or more mailboxes). This can be handy for handing out a unique address to a contact or business without using your actual email address. When mail is sent to it, it will be delivered to your mailbox. Adding a layer of indirection like this also means that if an address starts getting lots of spam because a company sold your address to a data broker, you can just change the alias to block it!
How to setup an email system
What you will need
You will need a domain name. Typically you would register this at any one of many domain registrars. They will then give you access to a control panel that will let you administer the domain, and in particular make changes to the records held in the Domain Name System (DNS). The DNS records are what tells the outside world where to direct things like email, or how to find a web site (if you have one) etc.
You will need a mailbox provider. This may be a service also offered by the domain registrar, but it does not need to be - it can be a third party, and often it is better when it is (see comments about bundled services above!)
Lastly you will probably want some email software to run on your computer or phone that will let you access your email.
Step by Step
For this example we will walk though setting up a mail system on the fictitious domain: diyloopy.com (no doubt some bright spark will go register this!). We have a DNS control panel on myfunkyisp.com, and a mail hosting company we will call emailcavern.co.uk. Using separate providers for each bit of the service may introduce extra steps - we will highlight those below. We will assume you are setting up a "normal" mailbox that can be accessed via SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol - usually used for sending email from a computer), and IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol), used for reading mail. IMAP typically stores all the mail on the server, so that it can be accessed by multiple devices while keeping them all in sync.
Setup the email domain with the mail host
(This step will probably not be required if using a mailbox provided by the domain registrar)
There are typically two parts to this - adding the domain to the mail system, and then updating the DNS to point incoming email toward the mail system:
- You will need to find the admin section on emailcavern.co.uk, and select the option to add your domain name. Enter your domain diyloopy.com. You may be given some options about the size and type of mailbox.
- Create your first mailbox. Let's say it is for Albert, and his address will be albert@diyloopy.com (email addresses are not case sensitive, but the email address is often used as a user name when connecting to a mail server, and that *might* be case sensitive. So it is better to enter email addresses in all lower case).
- Now you need to tell the outside world how to reach your mail system. This done by adding Mail eXchanger (MX) records to your domain. You will need to check with your mail provider what MX records are required. Many will offer two servers, so that there is a fallback for the system to try if the first does not respond. Let's say the mail system wants MX records for mx1.loopyserver.com and mx2.loopyserver.com, you will need to create a new MX records that point to "mx1.loopyserver.com" and "mx2.loopyserver.com". Typically you will be asked for a Host Name - normally you leave this blank, or you might need to enter "@" to indicate that you are setting up mail for the main diyloopy.com domain. You will be asked for the address that points to the mail server, and you might be asked for a "Priority". This is just a number to indicate the order of precedence if there are multiple servers to choose from. The one with the lowest Priority number will be tried first. Give the first one a precedence of 10, and the next 20 etc. Save the DNS changes.
You now have the basics of a mail system configured.
Setup your mailbox in an email client
So you can test your new account you can setup your new mailbox in an email client like Thunderbird. You will need the email address and password you setup above, and the names of the mail hosts SMTP and IMAP. Many modern mail hosts will only accept connections to the mail servers that use a secure encrypted connection. This prevents anyone snooping on the connection to the mail server. The help pages or tech support people for your mail provider should be able to give you all the details you need to setup your system.
Once you have your email software setup, go ahead and send yourself a test email!
Improve the security and resilience of your mail system
Now there was a time where the setup done so far would have been "enough" to send and receive email reliably. However there are weaknesses in this very basic setup which enables bad actors to easily send email and claim it originates from your domain, and there would be no easy way for a mail system receiving an email to check if it is legitimate. Alas more than 99% of the billions of emails sent each day are spam or worse; phishing, scamming, and any number of other malicious communications. So over the years the internet engineering task force has conceived of technical solutions to some fo these problems, and email service providers have slowly adopted more and more of them as "required" to try and stop abuse of mail systems.
Sender Policy Framework
How can a mail system tell if a mail it is being sent actually comes from the sender that it claims to be from? If it knew this is would be batter able to decide whether to deliver the message, or mark is as spam or even just delete it. A Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record indicates the only mail servers that are "allowed" to send email for your domain. So if a receiving server gets an incoming mail from a server than claims to be sending a message from your domain, but it is not coming from a server you have listed in your SPF record, it knows to treat it with greater suspicion! You can also indicate the action you would prefer the receiving server to take if it does get an email claiming from a rogue system.
(note that if you are using a package of mailboxes from your domain registrar, this setup might have already have been done - see how to check your SPF record)
So how do you know what needs to go in your SPF record? Easy answer is usually to ask your mail provider, they will often have one ready to go that you can paste into your DNS record.