Level 65
That would be down to MX records? I wouldn't host your own SMTP server though. Use a service for that or something like Google Business Apps.
2 likes
Feb 9, 2015
13
Level 6
Email accounts through DigitalOcean?
Planning out an L5 app and I can't decide how to handle email. I'm going to use DigitalOcean and Forge, but I'm not sure how to set up custom email addresses inside DO.
I know it's probably easier to just use Gmail, but I've always thought it looks more professional when contact email addresses are on the domain of the website in question.
Any advice?
Level 2
My understanding of DO is that you need to setup a mail server on your droplet. Here's an article on using Postfix https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-and-setup-postfix-on-ubuntu-12-04
Level 6
@ddotgrass I think I'll just use Gmail. Haha.
Level 8
Your registrar might provide some free email, but the space is usually a bit limited.
Level 6
@WookieMonster Ok. Thanks.
I'm probably going to drop the contact email address and direct people towards Twitter for support instead. Seems like much less of a headache.
Level 30
Of course you can host your own email server on your droplet. You need to install an email server like postfix and you have to configure it.
But: DONT DO IT ! You have no plan how to administrate a server.
An own server is more like "i install it with forge". You have to update the server, you have to secure the server and more. Specially a mail server is very sensitive. So if you want to be professional, host your emails somewhere else :)
Level 2
Probably best @nitrammit if you are unsure! Gmail is still excellent for your emails!
Level 1
If it's your personal email you can use the email forwarding feature from your domain provider. (namecheap has this feature).
Level 3
Managing SMTP is a nightmare. You'll wake up one morning and find the server is not receiving emails somehow. I usually use Google Apps for business (which costs money) or Zoho (it has free plan).
1 like
Level 6
@ionutbajescu Forwarding emails on to a Gmail account would be fine. I just want the publicly visible email address to be @ the domain of the website.
Level 3
Are you looking for a real email account that you receive mail on, or just something to send out transactional emails from your app, such as mails sent from noreply@yourdomain.com? For the former, something like Gmail works fine, and you can use your own domain name with gmail (at least you could several years ago when I used it). I personally use Microsoft Exchange Online. For transactional emails, use something like Mandrill, Mailgun, or Sendgrid. I have used all three and personally prefer Mandrill. Like others have said, DO NOT try to run your own email server unless you really know what you are doing.
Level 1
try hover.com and use their email forwarding to forward email from your domain to your iCloud/gmail accounts.
It's like $5 a year. If you need to have mailboxes they have that sell that too.
Level 1
One option which has not been mentioned here is migadu.com. They are providing (free) email hosting for your domains with unlimited mailboxes. I've been using the for a few domains and liked their service so far. What is nice is the very simple integration with Digitalocean in that they set up all the neccessary DNS entries for a specific droplet.
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