I want to use Office 365 Personal/Family without moving my domain to GoDaddy. In fact, GoDaddy does not even support the domain. GoDaddy is not a supported registrar for .NZ TLDs, only for .CO.NZ TLDs, and my domain has a ".NZ" only TLD.
I imagine that must have been asked a million times already. I just contacted MS support and the person on the chat confirmed that it is not supported. But since this is just DNS I was hoping someone would have figured it out already?
I wish a product manager at Microsoft would read this sub-reddit and release this already. It is silly to require a particular registrar for your custom domains.
This is described in the article Get a personalized email address in Microsoft 365:
Q: I already own a domain that's registered with a provider other than GoDaddy. Can I set up a personalized email address in Outlook.com?
A: At the moment, we only support connecting domains managed by GoDaddy with Outlook.com.
When entering my Premium subscription, I can see the following in Manage my subscription:
The answer is then : Not possible at the moment. I have no information if this will change in the future.
This related Reddit discussion indicates that it's possible and working at the time. It involves pretending to go to GoDaddy, and then capturing key values from the outlink for manual DNS updating.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/ft15pk/use_personalized_domain_with_outlook_and_office/
Go to outlook, the premium settings and choose the option to "get started" with a personalized domain.
Click the option to buy a new domain with GoDaddy, and a new window opens
Copy the URL of the new window that opens, it should look like this: https://domainconnect.godaddy.com/v2/domainTemplates/providers/outlook.com/services/personalizedoutlookemail/apply?mxRecordValue=XXXXXXXXX&state=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The part that you need is "mxRecordValue=XXXXXXXXX"
The XXXXXXXXX is the unique ID for verification used in DNS
Go to your own domain DNS settings and add the following settings replacing XXXXXXXXX with your ID found in step 3.
The dot on the end of the external domains is not a typo!
Name TTL Type Value Priority @ 1 hour MX XXXXXXXXX.pamx1.hotmail.com. 0 @ 1 hour TXT v=spf1 | include:outlook.com -all autodiscover 1 hour CNAME autodiscover.outlook.com. _dmarc 1 hour TXT v=DMARC1; p=none; _domainconnect 1 hour CNAME _domainconnect.gd.domaincontrol.com. _outlook 1 hour TXT XXXXXXXXX
Return to the premium settings in outlook to set your custom domain.
Choose the option "I already have a domain"
Enter the domain you just configured
You have to click to login to GoDaddy, do this, but just exit the page it goes to.
Congratulations it should now say you connected the domain with GoDaddy!
Videos
Any idea why they removed this functionality? This was something offered up until September of 2023, from my understanding, with family plans. Nearly every competitor, including iCloud and Google, offers this functionality as well.
Seems a bit silly to force people into using business plans in order to leverage their domain names. Not to mention, if you use a business plan then you are locked into that plan and cannot use your account for other services like Xbox Live/Game Pass.
Hi Gaurang,
Thank you for reaching out to this forum. I'm Utkarsh and as a fellow Microsoft user, I'm here and ready to help you today. I am a user like you, this is a user forum and not Microsoft directly.
Do not worry, I will help you sort this issue, rest assured that I will do my best to assist you.
Unfortunately, adding a custom domain to create personalized email addresses is not possible with a Microsoft 365 Family Plan. This feature is only available for business and enterprise plans, like Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, or Microsoft 365 E3.
Starting November 30, 2023, Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions no longer allow creating new personalized email addresses with your own domain for use with Outlook.com. This functionality was previously available as a benefit, but it is no longer offered.
However, there are alternative options to consider:
Upgrade to Microsoft 365 Business or Microsoft 365 Apps: These subscriptions still allow connecting your own domain and creating email addresses associated with it.
Continue using your current Microsoft 365 Family email address: If you already have a personalized email address created before November 30, 2023, you can continue using it as before.
Here are some options to consider:
- Continue using the existing Microsoft domain: Your Family Plan already provides email addresses with the "@outlook.com******************" domain. While not personalized, these email addresses still offer access to all the core features of Outlook.
- Upgrade to a business plan: If personalized email with a custom domain is essential for you, consider upgrading to a Microsoft 365 business plan. These plans offer features like custom domains, shared calendars, and additional security features.
I understand this might not be the answer you were hoping for, but I hope it helps clarify the limitations of the Family Plan and provides alternative options to consider.
I pulled the information from https://support.microsoft.com/office/365-75416a58-b225-4c02-8c07-8979403b427b
I hope this information helps! If I can be of help with anything else, please let me know. I will be glad to answer any other questions that you might have.
Give back to the Community. Help the next person who has this issue by indicating if this reply solved your problem. Click Yes or No below.
Warm Regards, Utkarsh
The article linked showing how to do it states that it must be a "business or enterprise plan". So do the same steps work with a Family plan? I'm also wanting to do the same thing and move away from my own self-hosted email for just our 4 family members, but I can't seem to find a clear answer on if the family plan does this or not.
Hey there, my name is Ajibola and I'm excited to help you out today!
As a Microsoft 365 Family subscriber, you have the option to set up a custom domain. Office 365 also allows the use of a custom domain, as long as it is associated with a paid subscription. The Microsoft 365 admin centre provides a simple and easy-to-follow guide on how to add a domain to your subscription. All you need to do is sign in to your domain registrar and follow the provided instructions. Once the domain is added, each user can set up mailbox names using the .com domain.
It's important to note that you don't need to switch your domain hosting service to GoDaddy. You can still use your current provider with your Microsoft 365 Family subscription.
Learn more about Add a domain to Microsoft 365 From
If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to ask. I'm here to help!
Give back to the Community. Help the next person who has this issue by indicating if this reply solved your problem. Click Yes or No below.
Kind regards
The information in that post is wrong.
If you have your own domain and an Microsoft 365 personal or family subscription, you can add the domain in Outlook.com's Settings (gear icon) > View all Outlook settings > Premium
https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/options/premium/personalemail
But you need to do it ASAP - before the end of Nov.
My instructions above are correct for family and personal accounts.
>>
https://support.microsoft.com/office/get-a-personalized-email-address-in-microsoft-365-75416a58-b225-4c02-8c07-8979403b427b
Also see this artilce for some useful tips, including how to keep your registrar.
https://www.slipstick.com/outlookcom/outlook-com-custom-domains/
<<
Hello! My name is Mostafa, and I will try my best to assist you with this so that you find a satisfactory solution.
Yes, you can use your own domain with Microsoft 365 Family. You can add your domain to Microsoft 365. In the wizard, you’ll confirm that you own the domain and then automatically set up your domain’s records, so email comes to Microsoft 365 and other Microsoft 365 services, like Teams, work with your domain.
You can follow these steps to add your domain to Microsoft 365:
- Sign in to the Microsoft admin center at https://admin.microsoft.com.
- Go to the Settings > Domains page.
- On the Domains page, select a domain.
- Under DNS records, select Custom Records; then select Add record.
5 Select the type of DNS record you want to add and type the information for the new record.
- Select Save.
Please review the below article.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365...
If the above steps do not help, reach out to me, and I will be happy to help and try my best to resolve your issue. Thank you.
Best,
Mostafa
No where did I mention that I was using the retail version of office. I said I am using Microsoft 365 Family which did allow you to use a custom domain. The option is no longer there.
After I could no longer find the settings regarding the domain, I researched this and came across this FAQ:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/changes-to-microsoft-365-email-features-and-storage-e888d746-61e5-49e3-9bd1-94b88e9be988
If I recall, the original service feature required you to have your domain registered with GoDaddy. At the time, if you wanted to use a custom domain, you simply added it to the family subscription account and all users (up to 6 total) were able to use there own name@custom[.]com for emails and logging into the Microsoft 365 family suite of products.
This is no longer offered, so my question stands: can I change domain registrar to Cloudflare (from GoDaddy) and not lose the ability to send and receive emails using the previously established custom domain?
There is no mail account provided with o365 retail, you are likely refering to outlook.com with a persoanl address/domain, and outlook.com is not part of o365.
You can add any valid email account to 0365/MS Outlook
I was searching and searching all over the net and was not able to find anything concrete regarding office 365 home or personal with custom domains that are not hosted using godaddy, in my case I use namecheap and their free dns service is fantastic. Mostly what you can find out there is related to office business ect but not personal, and the few posts reddit included don`t really tell you in detail what is needed. Sorry for the long post, hopefully someone out there who is looking to do something similar can find this.
Outlook domain setting after moving back my dns provider to namecheap again.
So I happen to find this comment from someone called "Jan" and here is what he said:
Jan commented · October 15, 2018 7:03 AM · Flag as inappropriate [continued from previous post] So basically you have three options now: Option A: transfer your domain to GoDaddy Option B: (e.g. if GD doesn't offer your TLD): go along as described above and buy their "premium DNS feature" - that allows you to use their servers indefinitely without having the domain there. And last not least: Option C: not for the faint-hearted :-) Set up with temporary zone as described above. Then look at what MS actually configured for your domain (view the records in GoDaddy). Copy all on those over into your own DNS / to whatever other DNS-provider you use. Re-set the domain's DNS server to your own. This way the relevant records will stay the same, so email will still continue to end up on MS Servers. Question is just if MS will at some point re-check if the Domain is still in GoDaddys DNS Server. I would vaguely hope that they don't, because: why should they? But there is no way to know if this works until the first person tries it :-) Perhaps I'll try at some point... Again: perhaps not the right choice for productive use.
So I was intrigue by this and option C is my kind of setup overall lol, So I started the process of moving my domain from namecheap dns to go-daddy and in the process lost all my custom entry for various services I have behind ngnix but no worries because I was going to come back right after I get all those TXT and Cname records go-daddy populate to make the magic happen between Microsoft and your domain.
So when ahead and change from namecheap NS1 and NS2 to go daddy NS1 and NS2, right away started getting alerts about all the services I monitor via uptimerobot, ok so far so good, when ahead and purchased office365 with company discount so in the end $52 for a year for one personal license to use, I had register my microsoft account using my actual email with my custom domain already, and right away saw the diamond shaped click on it and saw the option to setup the domain, to my surprise it found it right away and setup was completed in a matter of minutes, I suspect because I added the go daddy ns servers couple hours before this helped as well.
Now am getting email on my custom domain, everything is working on the office365 side but I still know I need to bring back my domain dns to namecheap, so I when ahead and logged into go-daddy and saw all the entry the free dns section had created. I copied all of them and changed back my domain name DNS from go-daddy to namecheap and everything I had setup before was already there so that was a plus, I removed all mx settings I had before and addded the exra TXT records that go daddy added and actually saw the reason why you need to start at go daddy is because you need to add CNAME record with "autodiscover" pointing to microsoft, I believe this is how they confirm your domain so for anyone that needs to try you might not even have to move the DNS to godaddy unless the other TXT are static and unique to the domain.
Below are all the settings you need to copied from go-daddy back to your dns provider, I can confirm after moving it back and adding the records am still getting emails and everything is working fine.
From godaddy bring this to your dns provider:
Type Name Value TTL Actions A @ Parked 600 seconds ---> don`t need it. CNAME autodiscover autodiscover.outlook.com 1 Hour --> This is how they find your domain when you try to setup it up from the diamond shaped menu on top right. CNAME www @ 1 Hour -----> No need. CNAME _domainconnect _domainconnect.gd.domaincontrol.com 1 Hour --> Require MX @ 103828561.pamx1.hotmail.com (Priority: 0) 1 Hour --> Require NS @ ns63.domaincontrol.com 1 Hour --> No need since you are using your own ns at this point NS @ ns64.domaincontrol.com 1 Hour --> " " SOA @ Primary nameserver: ns63.domaincontrol.com.--> Not needed TXT @ v=spf1 include:outlook.com -all 1 Hour --> Need for spam protection TXT _outlook 10382XXXX 1 Hour ---> This is needed, but not sure if is unique to each domain. Hence why I added XXX
lol Yes! So you just use your own dNS records and put them in your registrar: namecheap.com.
What you've wrote is interesting and different. While for some, it's all common knowledge, of linking a domain to your office tenant, O365 has thousands of inexperienced or underexperienced people being Exchange admins. We need these types of posts. Kudos
Thanks to u/careago_ for writing most of my post for me (italics).
Hi,
Thx for your manual jkronos ! - I couldn't have done it without your instructions or change myself to GoDaddy.
I tried it and it diditn work - first, then google a bit and found enought setups for Office365 Buisness, there are always other ID´s used in: MX @ 103828561.pamx1.hotmail.com (Priority: 0) 1 Hour --> Require where your id is 1030828561 - every ID is unique with every Ofiice365 Professional Personal or Home Account.
But how to get my ID without buy DNS Service at GoDaddy? Its very easy if you know how....
This should be a new Tutorial how to setup this connection and how use Exchange with Office365 Professional Personal/Home:
HOW To use own Domain with Office365 Professional Home/Personal without needet to be hostet on GoDaddy:
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open redirekt Link to GoDaddy - in this redirekt Link you find the ID you need to setup your DNS Entrys: https://domainconnect.godaddy.com/v2/domainTemplates/providers/outlook.com/services/personalizedoutlookemail/apply?mxRecordValue=XXXXXXXXX&state=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&redirect_url=.... The URL key "mxRecordValue" holds this Unique ID, form my Account its only a Number with 9 digits. Close this Link and setup your DNS Entrys: where XXXXXXXXX is your ID from the URL abouth best is to use TTL of 2min if you do something wrong, after Setup change to one 1hour
CNAME _domainconnect _domainconnect.gd.domaincontrol.com 1 Hour CNAME autodiscover autodiscover.outlook.com 1 Hour TXT @ v=spf1 include:outlook.com -all 1 Hour TXT _outlook XXXXXXXXX 1 Hour MX @ XXXXXXXXX.pamx1.hotmail.com (Priority: 0) 1 Hour
After that test it with https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx and creat DMARC with if needet https://dmarcian.com/dmarc-record-wizard/
The back to MS Office365 Account use "I have an GoDaddy Account" (u must scroll down in this f...k window...) - it should work.
If you want use Exhange and not SMTP with etxernal programs it works to. The difference: with SMTP u only get Emails, with Exchange you get all (cantacts, calendar,...)
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First creat an App Password
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the use https://oit.colorado.edu/tutorial/office-365-outlook-windows-manual-exchange-configuration
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Use Apppassword created before to login - not your normal account apssword - doesnt work.
I had the same problem so I googled and found this in Microsoft's help pages:
You can add multiple custom domains in all Office 365 subscriptions[...]
This help article looks as if it were possible but they only talk about the business versions and Office 365 Home isnt mentioned with a single word - so I continued my research, even contacted Microsoft - they had no idea, but then I finally found this post:
yesterday I called MS Support and the support engineer was discussing in the background with a colleague. Then he said that it's possible to use own domain with O365 Home... I just had to create a new account with my personal email adres/domain... after that I could order O365 and configure it with my own DNS domain name. Then after changing MX records with my hosting provider this would work for me.
anyway... I tried this anyway... I created a new account with my personal domain... then I ordered Office365Home hooked up to my paypal account....but in the end... no options for me to configure this. So I called back.... I got the same engineer... but then he said.. sorry, I don't have enough technical expertise, cause I'm a sales guy.... strange, because I tried to get tech help... The guy gave me a phonenumber to local (Belgium) Microsoft Tech support.... so I called the number. Then I got first or second line tech support on the line, so I expained the situation and the proposed option from his colleague. But I got a negative response.
No, sir, O365 Home does not allow you to use your own domain... why should it, there are not so many families using their own DNS domain, sir...
DUHH !!! What ? I don't understand their response... I times like this... people make their own family website... use a personal domain.... so I believe this is really a stupid reaction from a Microsoft Tech guy. Probably he has his own domain at home ;-) The only option is to choose for O365 Small Business and pay a lot more, because you need to pay for every user... every family member... so that would cost me at least 200€-250€ yearly.... please get serious ! so I give up.... Also Google Apps only has a business solution... also around 200€ yearly. Office365 Home... useless -> go for Office365 SMB... 2expensive ! I'll try again when Microsoft grows up and gets serious.
After all I don't think it is possible, I also found some forum posts and comments in blogs and they all say it isn't possible.
As of January 2020, this is now possible with a subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family Edition (formerly Office 365), but according to Microsoft you are required to purchase your domains with (or transfer them to) GoDaddy. I have found sources that claim this is possible with other domain registrars, with some users reporting success, but Microsoft maintain that this is only possible via GoDaddy.
Can someone clarify if indeed your domain has to be registered with Godaddy to host your email on Outlook if have Office 365 Family. Someone posted on Microsoft you did not, you just needed to update the DNS records accordingly. I would try it but I already have my mail hosted on another service that allows custom domains. Don't want to undo it just to find out it does not work and renter all records again. I do not want to use Godaddy for my domain registration so that is not an option as far as I am concerned.
As others have said, if you add the appropriate DNS records yourself, then you're good. MIicrosoft just has a deal with GoDaddy to automate the process for people who basically don't understand what DNS is...
Your custom domain name can be registered with any registrar. Microsoft has partnered with some of the most popular registrars by using their API to seamlessly update the DNS records for you, if you're not familiar with updating DNS records. You can choose Custom DNS and will be provided the records and values for you to update yourself.
Ever since I got my home office 365 family subscription, I had my eye on the option for the personalized domain name in outlook. However, according to Microsoft, only domains hosted with GoDaddy could be connected and used.
Now, to be fair, GoDaddy is probably a fine company to use for DNS hosting, but I don't want to switch registrars.
But I pieced information together how to get the personal domain in outlook without even using or switching to GoDaddy and use my current hoster!
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Go to outlook, the premium settings and choose the option to "get started" with a personalized domain.
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Click the option to buy a new domain with GoDaddy, and a new window opens
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Copy the URL of the new window that opens, it should look like this: https://domainconnect.godaddy.com/v2/domainTemplates/providers/outlook.com/services/personalizedoutlookemail/apply?mxRecordValue=XXXXXXXXX&state=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX..... The part that you need is "mxRecordValue=XXXXXXXXX" The XXXXXXXXX is the unique ID for verification used in DNS
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Go to your own domain DNS settings and add the following settings replacing XXXXXXXXX with your ID found in step 3.(Note, these settings are for TransIP specific, your own DNS manager may use a different syntax!)
| Name | TTL | Type | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| @ | 1 hour | MX | 0 XXXXXXXXX.pamx1.hotmail.com. |
| @ | 1 hour | TXT | v=spf1 include:outlook.com -all |
| autodiscover | 1 hour | CNAME | autodiscover.outlook.com. |
| _dmarc | 1 hour | TXT | v=DMARC1; p=none; |
| _domainconnect | 1 hour | CNAME | _domainconnect.gd.domaincontrol.com. |
| _outlook | 1 hour | TXT | XXXXXXXXX |
The dot on the end of the external domains is not a typo!
5. Return to the premium settings in outlook to set your custom domain.
6. Choose the option "I already have a domain"
7. Enter the domain you just configured
8. You have to click to login to GoDaddy, do this, but just exit the page it goes to.
9. Congratulations it should now say you connected the domain with GoDaddy!
Now, to be fair, GoDaddy is probably a fine company to use for DNS hosting
Narrator: they weren’t.
Thank you so much!
I recently switched from Microsoft 365 Business for my wife and I (and home labbing purposes) to Office 365 family, and I hated losing our personal domain. I use Google Cloud's DNS (not Google Domains), so I had to make sure I put double quotes around all the TXT records, but it worked perfectly!