Setting up own email FQDN (and maybe service?)

A custom email domain is definitely the way to go. I had to do one painful migration from Gmail to my custom domain, but since then it’s been fantastic.

One annoyance, some providers charge extra for aliases (apple@custom.net, google@custom.net), and/or for what is called “catch all” addresses (where you can send an email to literallyanything@custom.net without you having to set it up first). Some services I would shop around to would be a reasonable $3 per month per domain, then like $10 if you wanted a catch all. Annoying.

Fastmail doesn’t do this, and, if you don’t need privacy from state level actors, I highly recommend it. If your service supports proper email standards like imap (looking at you proton) you can have your new service import the email from your old service. If you somehow got an email to my Gmail which I haven’t used in years, it will still show up in my Fastmail inbox.

Edit: I guess I didn’t really answer your main question: how difficult is it to get your own domain set up and get good email delivery?

Answer is, if you use a good service, incredibly easy. Buy the domain, change some small things in the domain panel, and then you are done. I recommend pork bun for buying your domain. And if you use fastmail, it can host your name servers as well to make the setup even simpler (you do not need to know what a name server is).

I'll just throw out that this is the route I went with and I picked MXRoute as the service to hook it to. Sadly the sharp edges of the site got shaved off and now it looks more bland/professional/cookie cutter, but it used to have a fair amount of personality that indicated one sysadmin type person mostly doing it for themselves. Maybe that's better for business, who knows. I liked it better when their presales information included the line "MXroute is not an indescriminate pipeline designed to carry any volume or quality of shit from one location to another. " - archive.org

The controversy around them, if it counts, is mostly them telling misbehaving customers where to stick it. Some context here https://www.reddit.com/r/mxroute/comments/1las29z/mxroute_or/.

Due diligence they have a stance on AI, and I won't opine on whether it's right or wrong but it works for me https://blog.mxroute.com/mxroute-has-two-developers.

Service-wise, no complaints whatsoever. Hooked up my domain according to their instructions, started up Thunderbird, never looked back, never had a problem.

I'll give a +1 to Porkbun if you don't mind a US-based registrar. If you want to avoid the US, I've enjoyed Nordname.com. The registrar ultimately isn't a huge deal as long as you're using a relatively trustworthy one.

For email hosting, I'll give another option, I love Mailbox which also supports aliases/free catch-all address. I've been using them for like 5 years total (with about 1-year in the middle at Startmail which was also decent). Like @Weldawadyathink said, though, depending on how much privacy you really care about, any mail hosting service with free catch-all addresses and aliases that supports IMAP/SMTP should work about the same.

I rent email service from mailbox.org. They have a guide for the DNS setup required to use your own domain. It was surprisingly easy.

if I do wind up going the third route, I imagine it wont be possible to migrate all my emails with me when I have to do a migration cause a service is starting to go down the drain? Is there a way around that? I'd like to have access to all my emails in 1 places.

Just make sure that whatever service you use implements IMAP, and then use a client that fetches messages and stores them locally. I don't know of a service that doesn't, and if I did I would laugh and spit at it.

if there's faulty logic in my mindset AND

Nah. Although I'd note that typically people refer to this as "getting your own domain", even though technically the wording you used is more accurate, in case that helps searching for resources.

what are the common irritants/nuances of getting down my FQDN and connecting it to an email hosting service and ensure everything works as expected and any emails I send don't wind up going to people's spam

Effectively nothing. Your email host will have a short series of instructions on how to set up the appropriate DNS entries which will inform other providers of your messages' providence. The only real concern is if you get a really weird TLD (e.g. .tk were known to be used for spam a while back), in which case, some sites might automatically assume it's spam/fake (so they'll filter mail going to them as well). But I haven't had that happen in years, and you're good on anything typical (e.g. .com, .ca, .org, etc.)

if I do wind up going the third route, I imagine it wont be possible to migrate all my emails with me when I have to do a migration cause a service is starting to go down the drain? Is there a way around that? I'd like to have access to all my emails in 1 places.

I don't quite understand your concern. Perhaps to illustrate, when you want to port out of an email host, you'd get the new one to connect over IMAP and pull all your existing emails out of the first (and/or CalDAV, WebDAV, and CardDav entires if your host supported those too). Email aliases -- which is the common term used to refer to your suggestion about generating addresses for different purposes -- are a per-provider sort of thing, and I'm not sure I understand how relevant they are to your question about switching to a different host.

Overall, the process of getting a domain set up is fairly straightforward:

1. Buy a domain (if you'd like a .ca domain, I recommend canspace; otherwise, tld-list might be useful to understand if your registrar of choice is ripping you off)
2. Sign up with an email host (I suggest fastmail, but if you want to go absolutely crazy, you can always host your own IMAP server and pay a pittance to use a third party SMTP server (to ensure that your emails aren't dropped due to low reputation). Highly recommend against that, though, unless you want to make 24/7 sysadmin'ing your hobby)
3. Set up domain w/your email host (on fastmail, this is copy/pasting a few DNS entries into your registrar's default DNS host. You can use cloudflare instead, but tbh, if you're only setting up email, it's easier to just do this),
4. Import all your existing emails using IMAP (it's a quick and simple process on Fastmail, and should be the same for other providers).

It's, like, an afternoon project at most, even if you're as flighty and distractible as myself. Definitely worth it in order to avoid getting locked into e.g. a gmail domain for the rest of your days.

(edit) also, sidebar, but you can't use underscores in domain names. It's like most unicode characters these days but not them, afaik.

Hi @everyone_is_butiful

As others have already stated, using/renting your own domain name is 100% the way to go. Sorry for this long response...but hoping it gives you some info...

Here are a couple reasons why its sooo much better to use your own domain name for you main email (rather than having a gmail or yahoo or hotmail or whatever other email address):

• After you change all your accounts to use your domain name, you NEVER EVER need to change your email address again...like NEVER. In essence its about gaining freedom, sovereignty.
• Folks here have made good recommendations on (paid) email service providers...but if you ever want to change from one email provider to another, then you as a CONSUMER can simply switch...You keep using your domain name, but set things up with any new email provider, and things start flowing to your new provider....and you DO NOT have to change your email address anywahere...the transfer/migration is seamless. No one is the wiser. Its like changing your mobile provider...I mean, if/when you change mobile providers you still are able to keep your phone number, right? Same kind of thing, but with domain name instead of mobile phone number. This is possible because YOU control YOUR domain name. Its about having more choices.
• As was noted, and within reason, you can manage spam or certain messages (and related work flows) via separate aliases. Think amazon@whatever.com, etc. This can get unwieldy, and as others have noted, some providers have limits on how many aliases they offer you...but if you can keep things simple, then this is a good benefit...and again only possible because of your domain name. This is about additional flexibility and an organizational superpower that free email services like gmail, hotmail either don't provide or are limited, etc.
• If you ever wish to fully change your domain name from one to another, i bet you that whichever email provider you use will have far greater flexibility for forwarding mail to help with any transition than Gmail, hotmail, etc. So, having your own domain gives you even more flexibility to change your domain to anoither domain, if you should choose to.

Now, there are a few caveats that you MUST be aware of if/when you start down the path of using your own domain name:

• Much like real freedom in real life has a cost, do NOT go crazy ordering tons of domain names...because there is an ongoing cost for each domain name, and little tasks that need to be done annually for domain names...so keeping the number of domain names that you use as low and relevant as possible is key to not hurting you financially.
• Regarding budget and financing, assume you will need budget to pay for domain name registration for the next 2 decades....yep, you read that correctly, 20 years. This domain name becomes part of YOUR online identity...so, always have a valid credit card properly updated with whichever domain registrar you will use....you DO NOT want your email paused because your credit card expired, or you happen to use a debit card with no funds left to pay the renewal fee, etc. I'm not saying you need to have the money this very moment to pay for 20 years of service, simply that expect to keep paying - yes, like a subscription - for many years...but i assure you this is worth the cost of the subscription.
• Same thing for email provider. I sincerely feel that it is soooo worth paying a provider for the service of email. So, be sure you have budgeted funds to pay for email service for as long as possible. Or, if you don't have the funds now, that's fine, simply expect to slcie out some funds every year for this weel worthy service. Thankfully, there are many low cost (but high quality) options...As others noted there's Fastmail, mailbox, Zoho, migadu, etc. Just as an example, I happen to use Zoho, and their paid plans start at like $1 per user per month! Zoho by no means is the only one, and all others that cited here are also very good and low cost - so you have choice!
• Have I stated yet to be sure you allocate budget along the way to pay for many years to come? This is an easy thing to keep in mind, but big time annoying if you fail to pay a renewal!
• If possible, register for a domain name that uses either your countries common top-level domain (e.g. .FR for France, .CA for Canada, etc.)...Or, use one of the generic top-level domain names that are very popular and commonly known like .COM, .NET, .ORG...While, yes, there are like 200 or more other "fun" ones like .TOP, .VIP, .PARTY, etc...some of them sadly get blocked automatically because lots of systems think they're spam, etc....And by "systems", i mean government services, commercial services, etc...Prevent headaches by sticking to using a common, popular top-level domain.
  • I use a .CC top level domain and have used it for about 15 years....And there have been COUNTLESS times that I've had to state very clearly to customer service persons that my email address does NOT end in .COM, but rather .CC. This is more of a problem in the U.S., because outside the U.S. it seems many people are accustomed to many different other top level domains...but in the U.s., ahem, my fellow Americans get, er, get confused a bit - at least in many areas of life. Its a little better now than when i first got the .CC domain name, but still surprizingly not ideal everywahere. And, if important email does not get sent your way because a key person does not know that there are more than just .COM, .NET, and .ORG domain names in the world, well, you don't need to suffer issues because of their ignorance. so make things as easy to convey as possible.
  • If i had a time machine to go back, i would have gotten a .Com or .NET or .Org, and not a .CC...but alas, i'm at a good place now with my .CC after almost a decade and a half. ;-)
• Choose a domain name that is easy to spell out verbally. I know its difficult to get something short and sweet nowadays (since lots of good domain names are all taken now)...but do keep this in mind. I'll go back to the customer service person example: can you easily spell out your email address to them, and feel confident that they wrote it down correctly?
• I suggest avoiding using hyphens or underscores in the domain name...Maybe some domain registrars allows some of these, and folks have differing opinions, and you might even be clever in your use...but my opinion is that it tends to be awkward to spell out verbally, or too easy for folks to forget to include when typing it out, etc...but this is not a hard and fast rule.
• Another not firm, but optional consideration is to avoid having numbers in your doamin name. Much like hyphens or underscores, maybe in some rare case there might be a good way to use it, but generally speaking numbers (like symbols) tend to be a little awkward to spell out...Again, simply my opinion.
• I'm sure there are others...but this hits the big caveats.

Ultimately, you can try a low cost experiment...

• Register whatever domain name is cheapest.
  • Porkbun has very cheap prices. Find something that is super cheap, and using one of the fun top level domains is ok since this is ONLY a test. For example, the top level domain for Germany .DE is like $4 USD per year! Try it for your first experiment to see how things work.
• Connect this now registered domain name to a paid email provider...ideally via some trial period if possible.
• Do NOT use this new email address for anything important! Remember, that this is ONLY an experiment!
• Feel free to share it with only a few close folks, but be EXTREMELY clear to your friends that this email address will NOT last, yada yada, etc. Or, if you don't want to share it with your friends, test sending and receiving to this address from other gmail, yahoo, etc. free mailboxes to be sure things can be sent and received from it.
• Test things out:
  • Judge for yourself how difficult it was to hook up this domain name to your email provider?
  • How is this email provider? Is the performance ok, or do messages get delivered very slowly?
  • If you will use the webmail from this paid email provider, is the UI/UX ok, or is the provider good but their app sucks, and maybe you test things out using a dedicated mail app like Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.
    • And when connecting up and using the other mail app (outlook, thunderbird, etc.) to this provider, are the instructions clear and easy to understand?
    • How is the performance now of this email provider via your mail app (and not their webmail)?

Also, remember that you do NOT need to retire your old Gmail or hotmail or yahoo or whatever mailbox...Keep it as your backup and anyway there always seems to be some lingering service out there that never updated your contact info in their databases, and still sending you important crap there.

I hope this helps!

Be aware with some email providers that charges per seat (as in: mailbox). They all have the catch-all feature, which allow you to use anything@yourdomain.tld on the fly, but you can't reply from these made up addresses.

I've been using alternative email providers with custom domains for longer than I can remember. The longest one I stayed with is Fastmail, which is great, but charges per seat. Moved briefly to iCloud+, where this issue is slightly different, but still there and if you have two or more domains, they all drop in the same mailbox. The upside is price: it's really cheap and costs nothing more if you're already a paying subscriber. (Storage is shared with iCloud Drive, Apple Photos etc.)

Recently, I tried Purelymail. It's fine, although a little slow and its CalDAV implementation is bare bones. Not having invites was a deal breaker for me.

I finally landed at Migadu, which I've been using in my micro company for a while. It's great and very affordable, even if a little pricier than Purelymail.

Last week I wrote about these two — Purelymail and Migadu — on my blog. It's mostly this comment, but more detailed.