I came across a solution that is perfect for my clients that only have 1 or 2 in the team and don't rely on email heavily throughout the day.
Although the service looks robust, it is reliant on someone else's software hosted online and can be pulled at anytime. Therefore I don't recommend becoming reliant on it, especially when the cost of hosted email is so cheap, or better yet get yourself a G Suite account with a free trial.
For those that are going to utilise the service, this is how you set it up in your Gmail account in order to "send as" from your email.
- Assuming you are using Gmail's Two-Factor Authentication (strongly recommended for security), visit https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords.
- When prompted for
Select the app and device you want to generate the app password for
:- Select
Mail
under the drop-down forSelect app
- Select
Other
under the drop-down forSelect device
- When prompted for text input, enter your custom domain's email address you're forwarding from (e.g.
hello@niftylettuce.com
- this will help you keep track in case you use this service for multiple accounts)
- Select
- Copy the password to your clipboard that is automatically generated
⚠️ If you are using Google Apps, visit your admin panel Apps > G Suite >Settings for Gmail > Advanced settings and make sure to check "Allow users to send mail through an external SMTP server...". There will be some delay for this change to be activated, so please wait for ~5-10 minutes.
- Go to Gmail and under Settings > Accounts and Import > Send mail as, click
Add another email address
- When prompted for
Name
, enter the name that you want your email to be seen as "From" (e.g.Niftylettuce
) - When prompted for
Email address
, enter the email address with the custom domain you used above (e.g.hello@niftylettuce.com
) - Leave the checkbox for
Treat as an alias
unchecked - Click
Next Step
to proceed - When prompted for
SMTP Server
, entersmtp.gmail.com
and leave the port as587
- When prompted for
Username
, enter the portion of your Gmail address without the@gmail.com
part (e.g.niftylettuce
if my email isniftylettuce@gmail.com
) - When prompted for
Password
, paste from your clipboard the password you generated in step 2 above - Leave the radio button checked to
Secured connection using TLS
- Click
Add Account
to proceed - Open a new tab to Gmail and wait for your verification email to arrive (you will receive a verification code that confirms you are the owner of the email address you are attempting to "Send Mail As")
- Once it arrives, copy and paste the verification code at the prompt you received in the previous step
- Once you've done that, go back to the email and click the link to "confirm the request". You need to do this step and the previous step for the email to be correctly configured.
- Done!