Set up Premium Email

The order that works — publish DNS records first, then create mailboxes, then connect your mail apps. Doing it the other way round wastes a day.

Getting Premium Email working is four steps, and the order matters. Mail cannot reach a mailbox that DNS has not yet pointed at WebGee, so creating mailboxes first means sitting and waiting anyway.

1. Publish the DNS records

Open the DNS Guide tab and add every record it lists at whichever DNS provider your nameservers point to.

The MX record is what actually routes mail. The SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are what stop it being filed as spam once it arrives, and the two CNAME records are what let mail apps configure themselves.

Full detail: DNS records for Premium Email.

Publish the records where your nameservers actually point. If your domain is registered with one company and using another's nameservers, adding records at the registrar changes nothing. Check Check what nameservers your domain uses if you are not sure which that is.

DNS changes take up to 24–48 hours to propagate. Use Check DNS on the tab to see WebGee's own view of your current records rather than guessing.

2. Create your mailboxes

Once the MX record resolves, open Mailboxes and add an account for each person or function you need — see Manage mailboxes.

Use the panel's Generate button for passwords rather than choosing your own. The password is shown once, at creation, and you will need it in step 4.

3. Bring old mail across, if there is any

If these addresses already exist at another provider, copy their contents in before you tell anyone to switch. The Email Migrator connects to the old server over IMAP and syncs messages across on a schedule — see Import mail from another provider.

Migrate before the MX cutover, not after. Once WebGee is receiving, the old mailbox stops getting new mail, but everything already in it stays where it is until you copy it.

4. Connect your mail apps

Give each person their address and password, then point them at Connect your mail app.

If the autoconfig and autodiscover CNAME records from step 1 have propagated, most clients need only the address and password — they find the rest themselves.

Checking it works

Before telling anyone to switch:

Use Open Webmail and sign in as one of the new mailboxes.
Send a message from it to an outside address, and confirm it arrives.
Reply from that outside address, and confirm it lands in webmail.

Both directions working means MX and SPF are right. If sending works but receiving does not, the MX record has not propagated. If receiving works but your mail lands in spam, the SPF or DKIM record is missing or wrong — recheck them with Check DNS.