Set up email on your own domain

StretchMail gives you a real business inbox on your own domain — addresses like you@yourdomain.com that you send from, receive to, thread, label, filter, and search. This guide takes you from a bare domain to a working mailbox.

You will do four things, in order: add your domain, publish DNS records, verify, then create mailboxes. Mailboxes only activate after ownership and mail routing (MX) pass, so the DNS step is not optional.

Before you start

• You need a domain you control (for example yourdomain.com) and access to its DNS provider — wherever you manage records (Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Route 53, your registrar, etc.).
• Open StretchMail in your workspace and go to Domains.

Step 1 — Add your domain

1. In StretchMail, open Domains and click Add domain.
2. Enter your domain exactly — just the bare domain, yourdomain.com, with no https:// and no www.
3. Click Save. StretchMail generates your DNS plan, including a unique ownership-verification token, and shows the exact records to publish.

Note: Everything is scoped to your organization. The domain, its mailboxes, and its mail are visible only inside your workspace.

Step 2 — Publish the DNS records

Open your DNS provider in another tab and add each record below. The Host column is what most providers ask for (the part before your domain); a few providers want the full name — both are shown. Copy the exact values from the StretchMail Domains screen, because two of them are unique to your domain.

What each record does:

• A (mail) — points mail.yourdomain.com at the StretchMail host. This is the target your MX, SMTP, and IMAP all resolve to.
• MX — tells the world to deliver mail for your domain to mail.yourdomain.com. Priority 10 is the default StretchMail expects.
• TXT _stretchmail — proves you own the domain. Mailboxes stay inactive until this passes.
• SPF — authorizes StretchMail (and your configured sending provider) to send as your domain. The include: and ip4: values are filled in for you on the Domains screen.
• DMARC — sets a delivery policy and a reporting mailbox. The default policy is quarantine; you can relax it to p=none while you warm up, then tighten it.
• DKIM — the public signing key. It may show a provider-generated placeholder until your sending provider issues the key; replace it with the value shown in the dashboard when it appears.

Tip: If your DNS provider automatically appends the domain, enter only the Host value (mail, @, _stretchmail, _dmarc, stretchmail._domainkey). If it does not, enter the Full name. Never enter both — that produces a doubled record like mail.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com.

Step 3 — Verify

1. Back in StretchMail Domains, click Verify DNS on your domain.
2. StretchMail re-checks the A, MX, ownership TXT, SPF, and DMARC records live.
3. When the required records resolve, the domain flips to verified.

DNS changes can take a few minutes (occasionally up to an hour) to propagate. If verification fails immediately after you save the records, wait and click Verify DNS again.

Step 4 — Create mailboxes and aliases

Once the domain is verified:

1. Open Mailboxes and click New mailbox.
2. Enter the local part and pick your domain to form the full address, e.g. you@yourdomain.com.
3. Save. The mailbox is now live — it can send and receive.

Add aliases the same way from the Aliases screen. An alias (for example hello@yourdomain.com) forwards into a real mailbox without being a separate login — handy for role addresses like sales@ or support@.

Using your inbox

Your inbox works the way you expect from a modern mail client:

• Compose — click Compose, enter recipients, subject, and body, and send. You can hold a message briefly with Undo Send, or schedule it with Send later.
• Reply / Reply all / Forward — open any message and use the reply actions; StretchMail keeps the conversation attached to the same thread.
• Threads — replies on the same subject are grouped into a single conversation so you read a back-and-forth in one place instead of as scattered messages.
• Labels — tag messages with labels to organize them; a message can carry several labels at once. Apply and remove labels from the message toolbar.
• Filters — set rules that automatically label, archive, or route incoming mail so your inbox sorts itself.
• Folders — messages live across Inbox, Drafts, Queued, Archive, Spam, and Trash; archive to clear the inbox without deleting, and restore anything from Trash within the retention window.
• Search — the search box queries across your mail by sender, subject, and body.

Connect your phone or Outlook (IMAP / SMTP)

If enabled for your plan: IMAP and SMTP access let you use StretchMail from Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, or your phone's mail app. If you do not see IMAP/SMTP settings in StretchMail, it is not enabled for your plan — use the web inbox instead, or ask your administrator to turn it on.

When it is enabled, add a new account in your mail app using these settings (the exact host and any non-standard ports are shown on your StretchMail Settings screen):

Choose SSL/TLS for IMAP and STARTTLS for SMTP, and make sure "outgoing server requires authentication" is on.

Deliverability primer

Getting into the inbox (not spam) is mostly about trust:

• New domains warm up. A brand-new domain has no sending reputation. Start with modest volume to people who expect to hear from you, and ramp up over days, not minutes. Sudden large blasts from a cold domain get filtered.
• Keep SPF, DKIM, and DMARC aligned. All three should stay published and pass. Alignment — your From domain matching the domain that SPF and DKIM authenticate — is what receivers reward. Do not remove these records after setup.
• Avoid spammy content. Misleading subject lines, all-caps, link shorteners, huge images with little text, and no unsubscribe path all hurt. Write like a person, include a real reply-to, and honor opt-outs.
• Let DMARC reports guide you. The rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com address collects reports; watch them for sources failing authentication before you tighten the policy to p=reject.

Troubleshooting

• Verification never passes. Re-check each record's Host — the most common mistake is a doubled domain (_dmarc.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com). Enter either the short host or the full name, never both. Then wait for propagation and click Verify DNS again.
• Mail routing (MX) fails but ownership passes. Confirm the MX record points to mail.yourdomain.com with priority 10, and that the A record for mail resolves to the IP shown in the dashboard.
• "Create mailbox" is blocked. Mailboxes activate only after ownership, MX, and SPF pass. Finish verification first.
• Outgoing mail lands in spam. Confirm SPF and DKIM both pass, keep early volume low to warm the domain, and check DMARC reports for the failing source.
• A record conflicts with an existing website. The A record is for the host mail only — it does not affect the www or root record that serves your website.

What's different: StretchMail vs StretchSMTP

• StretchMail is an email client — a Gmail-class inbox for people. You read, reply, thread, label, and search mail at you@yourdomain.com. Use it for human, day-to-day correspondence.
• StretchSMTP is a transactional email API — a Postmark/SES-class service for your applications to send mail programmatically (password resets, receipts, notifications). There is no inbox; you call an API and read delivery logs.

They complement each other: StretchSMTP is the sending engine, StretchMail is the human inbox. If you need to send app-generated email at volume, see Send transactional email via API under StretchSMTP.