This may or may not be an InfinityFree issue, but I thought I’d ask around to toe the waters a bit and see if anyone might have some pointers.
I purchased a google domain last week and I’ve successfully pointed it to IF, so something is working. I went to the email forwarding page and followed its instructions as best as I could: I made up an email address using my custom domain and had it forward to my gmail email.
Alas, that doesn’t seem to be working. Every test email I’ve sent hasn’t arrived (although I haven’t gotten a “failure to send” response from the mail server, so that’s something at least). It just… doesn’t arrive. It’s not in spam or anywhere.
I’m pretty new to this. What might I be missing that’s preventing my google domain from forwarding email properly?
I’m still in the process of setting up all of the configurations from the Google Domains side. It does have an entry to “Add an MX server to choose which mail server handles your email messages,” but that sends me to the DNS panel where I’m able to set up custom name servers (which I had to do in order to point my domain to IF). I’m not sure what to enter in there, however…
You are using InfinityFree nameservers, so InfinityFree manages your DNS zone. Therefore, the MX records need to be setup in the InfinityFree control panel, nowhere else.
If you don’t understand what you’re doing, and you don’t have time or don’t want to research how to do this, you may not want to use your domain for email. You will be better off using a Gmail.com email.
If you don’t understand what you’re doing, and you don’t have time or don’t want to research how to do this, you may not want to use your domain for email.
I have time to research, I’m just not sure where to look because I’m not sure what I’m looking for.
Correct. You need to add the MX records that google (Your email provider) provded you with.
Unfortunately, I’m not having much luck finding that. And I’m wondering if I’m doing this backwards or mixed-up in some way.
To clarify:
I purchased a domain from google domains (chaos.red)
Google domains suggested creating a custom email using Google Workspace, but also offered the ability to freely forward up to 100 email addresses to my gmail.
I’m trying to figure out which is the master and which is the slave in this situation. I know IF will host whatever using the custom domain (chaos.red) but I’m drawing a blank when it comes to the email bit. I don’t know if I’m missing an important step or what.
Ok. First things first, you need to find an email provider. Are you going to use Cloudflare? Will you use Google? Will you use ForwardMail? (I could go on forever here). Pick one. Signup for one. Add your domain to one.
In the setup steps for whatever provider you choose, you will be asked to set MX records (Since I have never used GSuit or Google Domains, I cannot tell you where to find this). You need to copy those records to your DNS zone provider (InfinityFree in this case) and wait for them to propgate.
If you cannot find the MX records, contact the support desk of whatever service you end up using.
I’ve added the MX Records to IF. Google Domain indicates that “All settings for this domain are disabled and can’t be changed. To enable them, restore the default Google Domains name servers.” I presume there’s some interaction there that caused this behind the scenes.
In any case, it appears that it’s working - or something’s working. Problem now is, IF no longer offers email forwarding for free accounts - so, unless there’s a further workaround that I’m unaware of, it looks like I’ll have to table the custom email forwarding until I decide to upgrade my host plan!
Unless there’s anything else pertinent, I appreciate everyone’s efforts and assistance.
Update: It took some time, but my forwarded emails started showing up. Great! I guess I have to get used to proliferation time not being instant in the web hosting world, huh?
We’ve stopped providing email services with free hosting. But there is absolutely no need to host your email and website with the same provider. After all, many companies host their mail with providers like Google Workspace and Office 365, without hosting their websites and other services with those providers as well.
