October 1, 2019
3min Read
Domantas G.
Zoho Mail is a popular third-party email service known for its minimalistic and ad-free user interface. If you want to have a reliable external email server to use alongside your domain, it’s well worth checking out. In this article, we will learn how to set up a Zoho Mail account to send and receive emails.
The free version supports up to five users, with a 5GB storage space limit for each one. However, you are only allowed to use a single domain name with this version of Zoho Mail. For small projects, this is a good tradeoff, considering that it also comes with features such as Calendars, Docs, and Sheet – all of the necessary tools for collaborative work.
To start using Zoho Mail’s services, you need to sign up first. It is a fairly straightforward process since all you need is a valid phone number and your own domain.
That’s it! You have successfully created a free account on Zoho Mail.
Now that our Zoho Mail account has been registered, we can move forward to the next step. Before we can begin using it, we have to configure it first.
Zoho Mail requires you to verify the domain name you just entered on the Sign Up page. You are given three methods for this – TXT, CNAME, and HTML – but in this example, we will use the CNAME method.
Your domain name has been successfully verified! You can now Add Users and Create Groups.
The next step is adding new MX Records, so your new Zoho mailbox can start receiving emails from your custom domain.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) are two email authentication methods needed to prevent email spoofing and phishing. Essentially, it prevents illegal conduct by unauthorized users impersonating your account.
Zoho Mail gives you an option to configure these two settings from the get-go.
SPF prevents attempts to impersonate someone by specifying which hostnames or IP addresses are authorized to send emails from a domain. Setting up SPF records to work with your Zoho Mail account only takes a few clicks.
DKIM adds signatures to each email message. If you want to learn more, here’s a more in-depth guide on DKIM. To configure DKIM in Zoho Mail, do the following:
Congratulations! You have finished configuring your Zoho account to receive and send emails from your domain. The next two steps provide the option to migrate an existing email and activate mobile access, but these can be skipped.
Zoho Mail is a great way to manage your own mail server with relative ease. In summary, we learned how to:
If you have any questions, let us know in the comments below!
September 25 2019
Nice tutorial. If you have a WHM/cPanel VPS and use Zoho for email and the VPS only sends outgoing email from web scripts, CSF/LFD and cpanel, then is incoming SMTP actually required? If not, how does one lock it down [and any ports that can be closed off] to help stop bots/hackers?
Domantas G.
Replied on September 26 2019
Hey Andrea, I think you mean outgoing SMTP, no incoming. If you are using 3rd party service to send emails and use postfix server, see this link http://www.postfix.org/BASIC_CONFIGURATION_README.html#mydestination