Hello, I am trying to set up my own domain for iCloud email. Search as I may online I see no information for DNS MX or TXT records. Can someone please point me in that direction? Thanks.
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So I plan on moving to the no-cost option of Google Workspace since they are ending GSuite Legacy accounts. I originally upgraded to a paid account but changed my mind once the no-cost option was announced and contacted support to get on the waitlist. The no-cost option comes without email.
So I decided to start testing iCloud Custom Domains with a secondary domain to see what we can do and if we will be moving our email to iCloud+ or somewhere else. Also it gives us a chance to see how seamless we will be able to transfer everything over.
Now onto the good part... I use iCloud+ Custom Domains when it first was in beta and thought it was awful, but I guess it's more advanced than I thought because today I have a small business success story for myself with a test domain and will be happy to transfer our main domain over when it is time.
So first of all we setup our domain and then setup 3 email address (me@, hello@ and support@), the first thing I knew is that 2 of those we gonna be used for other purposes. I needed SMTP for the hello@ and I needed to be able to forward our support@ to a Help Desk service.
Now this is very important for anyone using more advanced features. Don't try to setup anything using Mac Mail or iOS Mail. Everything needs to be done thru iCloud.com for it work work right, I spent 2 hours messing with rules on Mac mail before I tried on iCloud website.
Now we need SMTP for our website in order to send user account emails. On average we send our about 5-10 per day to new users. Well within Apple's 1000 per day limit. So in order to use SMTP you need to create an app password. Your login will NOT be your custom domain, but it WILL be your main iCloud email, whatever is set to default. And the password is the app one you created on appleid.apple.com. Make sure you use the highest security at port 587. I then sent a test email and it worked perfect. And I tested it by creating a dummy account on my site and it also worked perfect. So SMTP works.
Next step was forwarding emails from our new support@ to our help desk service using the forwarding email that our service gave us. Again now you cannot do this thru Mac or iOS mail apps. This must be done on iCloud site. First create a new folder, I called it Support. Then go to the setting cog in Mail on iCloud's site. Go to preferences and then rules. I created two rules and they must be in a correct order, you will see numbers next to the rules once created. The first rule I created was to forward all email sent to our support@ to the address my service gave to me. The second rule was to then mark those messages to support@ as read and move to the support folder we created. The forwarding must be rule #1 in the order. Then I tested it and it worked perfect also.
So yes iCloud Custom Domains can be used for small businesses and is a replacement for Google Workspace if you can live within the 3 email limit.