Recently, Google announced that they are closing new signups for the free version of Google Apps suite, which had Google Apps with Gmail on custom domain names. A lot of our users asked if there was a free alternative. Outlook.com is a free email service launched by Microsoft which you can use with your own domain name. Combining Outlook.com with Microsoft Skydrive’s free personal storage, Outlook.com can be very useful for professionals and website owners. In this article, we will show you how to set up your own professional branded email address with Outlook.com
Update: We strongly recommend using Google Apps for creating your custom branded email address. That’s what we use for our emails, and we feel confident recommending the Google Suite. See our guide on how to setup a professional email address with Google Apps and Gmail.
What is a Professional Email?
A professional email is the one that has your business name in it. For example support@yourdomain.com is a professional email rather having yourdomain@yahoo.com. There are many ways you can setup a professional email. You can use the built-in mail server that comes with most WordPress web hosting providers. But that does not nearly match up to the features you get with Gmail.
Step by Step Guide to Setting up Outlook.com on a Custom Domain Name
In order to use Outlook on your own custom domain, you need to configure your domain’s MX and TXT Records. MX records tell domain name servers that you are using Microsoft mail servers, and TXT records will be used to verify your ownership of the domain.
Step 1: Signing up for a Custom Domain Mail Service
Go to Windows Live Admin Center and click on Get Started to start setting up your domain on Outlook.com.
Enter your domain name on the next page:
The next screen will give you a choice to either use an existing Microsoft account to administer this domain or create a new Microsoft account on your own domain name, e.g. yourname@yourdomain.com. Make sure that you give an active email address as Microsoft will send a verification email to verify your ownership of the email address.
If you opted to use an existing Microsoft account then you will be asked to sign in, otherwise you will have to fill a form to set up a new account on your custom domain. Once you fill out the form, you will receive a verification email at the email address you provided. Click the link in the email to verify your ownership of the email account.
The next page will ask you to confirm your request and accept Microsoft’s terms of service. Once you accept, you have finished the first step of setting up an administrator email account to manage your domain on Outlook.com
Step 2: Setting up DNS MX Records to use Outlook.com
After the registration, you will reach Windows Live Admin Center’s domain control page and it will be showing MX and TXT record strings which you need to add to your DNS settings.
Many WordPress hosting providers use cpanel for account management. It is likely that your web host may be using a different control panel with a slightly different interface. Don’t worry just look around for Domain Settings page, and you will find a link to edit the DNS settings or enter MX records. If you can’t find DNS or MX records settings in your control panel, then ask your web host. In this tutorial we will be using cpanel to demonstrate how to add MX records.
Log in to cpanel and click on MX Entry icon under Mail:
Select a domain name:
After this you need to select email routing method. Choose “Automatically detect configuration”.
Add the MX record string provided by Outlook.com. Leave priority as it is and add the record in the Destination field.
To protect email originating from your domain and landing into junk or spam, you need to configure sender ID by adding a TXT record with this value:
v=spf1 include:hotmail.com ~all
If you want users to use mail.yourdomain.com to sign in for email address, then you can create a CNAME record in your domain’s custom DNS settings or in cpanel’s Simple DNS Editor. Enter Mail in the Name field, and enter subdomain in CNAME field, e.g. mail.example.com.
You will have to wait for DNS settings to propagate which can take 30 minutes to 48 hours. You can refresh Windows Live Admin center’s domain settings page to see when the changes are live and ready.
Step 3: Creating Custom Domain Name Email Accounts
Go to Windows Live Admin Center and click on your active domain. On the left sidebar you will find options to manage accounts on your domain. You can choose Open Membership, so that people on your site can signup for an email account with your domain name. The other option is where you manually create email accounts for your staff, family members, friends or community members. You have the power to suspend or delete any email account on your domain at any time.
Microsoft’s new Outlook.com email service looks very promising, and it is a great option for those who are searching for a free alternative to Gogole Apps. Let us know if you have any questions and concerns regarding this Outlook.com setup.
I need a catch-all alias to be sure to receive all the email addresses How do I set up with a live domains
hi i already purchased a domain with is it possible to use that domain to setup an email with Outlook or do i need to purchase another one?
To add to my earlier query, I would like to have my own domain name. Can help to create it and have it linked to my website?
Esther
Hi, I like to create a business email address. Can you please advise?
Thereafter, I would like to create a webpage/website for the business..
Please advise. Thank you.
Esther
Hi Esther,
Please take a look at our guide on how to set up professional email address with Google Apps and Gmail.
how much does it cost?
i want to create bussiness mail id plz help me
For bussiness e mail address I have to pay?
I do not work for over year . It’s hart for me to generate any money at all ..
I’m over sixty eight I have chance to get a contract only if I will have my company e-mail address.
I have no extra money to pay for e-mail .
I have only money for the rent not even for the food..
please to understand me.
Jan.
You can also get a business email address with Gmail. They are offering one month free trial that you can use.
What is the maximum email capacity which we can send through this service?
Hi, is this for free?
I have already my own domain name and want to create email id for my organization, needs technical support
Yes you can but both outlook and gmail now require a small fee to use your own domain name.
office 365 ain’t free?
i own a domain name but have not built a website yet. Can I still create a business email address using my domain name? Can I use OUTLOOK or GMAIL for this ?
Hi Syed,
Me too want to know the details about the below screenshot. Is this will be problem to us with the existing emails and email IDs.
Pls help us, as we are newbies and can’t understand Microsoft’s technical explanations.
Thanks
Janarthanan
it doesn’t offer the free service anymore ☹
UPDATE: Microsoft is no more offering this service.
Microsoft has pulled the plug on this.
I’ve setup a petition to Microsoft to allow us to keep our accounts as is without migrating them to Office 365.
https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/microsoft-keep-current-outlook-com-custom-domains-as-is-without-forced-migration-to-premium-office-365-subscription
Thank you for this information. It was very helpful!
Thank you so much!! This is such a great guide to setting up a custom email. You helped me and my family’s Company to add a professional touch to our email services! I only have one problem and that is when I entered the new MX Record I was not aware that you would have to delete any existing Records in that area otherwise it will interfere with the activation of the account. Other than that I’m totally happy!
I need to know the screen shot. it will help us more.
How can I increase the mail ids limit from 50 to 500 for free?
Was looking for this! Perfect!
Hello, thanks for this tutorial, please where do I need to add this
v=spf1 include:hotmail.com ~all
its more than 72 hrs of changing my dns. but now also it is showing “You need to prove ownership of this domain by creating a DNS record. Use the settings below.”
This probably means your DNS records are not correctly set.
hey! nice article…thank you
Hi,
I set up the account following your instructions.Thanks
But I have this problem , i am not receiving any mails in my inbox. when i send mails from other accounts to this mail it is bounced.
i checked the microsoft support. looks like it is some internal problem and not a settings problem. people are reporting other issues with accounts.Microsoft says they resolved the issue. But doesnt look like so.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/oemail-osend/my-outlookcom-email-account-is-not-receiving-any/02581144-c02b-4cdc-9132-98a8e0531ab1?msgId=2fd9d76f-6dfa-45bc-9a46-81e11265a7a1&page=1
R
Hi,
I am trying to setup emails for my domain. This tutorial is really helping me since I am a non technical person. I have set up my live account and I am getting a message ‘You need to prove ownership of this domain by creating a DNS record. Use the settings below’.
When contacted a person where I have hosted my site, he is saying that the settings displayed here are for CPANEL and my sited is on DreamHost. DreamHost has its own CPANEL and that doesn’t support entries like ‘Priority: 10 (or High priority)’ etc.
Can you please guide us to take this forward.
Thanks,
Ankush
Ankush dreamhost does support A records and Max records. For records ask the person managing your account to go to Mail » Custom MX in Dreamhost Panel. As for A or TXT records go to Domains and then click on DNS.
I don’t suppose you’d still be able to use this email for Google+ and YouTube account though, eh…. Better than nothing, I guess.
Thanks for the alternative!
Hi I set up my domain via Godaddy.com..and I already have my live mail set up. My question is: When I tried replying to the email my replies bounces back. what could be the problem?
seems like you have not correctly configured your site to use Outlook’s mail servers.
Hi- I did a setup of outlook.com with my domain. All seems to be working fine except i am not able to get emails from MS Outlook. If it is possible to access email via MS Outlook app please let me know.
Great article thanks.
We run a mail server and batch import mail into a sql server database. Would it be viable/possible to switch our mx to outlook.com and forward all inbound and outbound email to our mail server so that we can still import mail into sql?
Sounds doable. But make sure before you implement it.
Hi, I just created an outlook email admin account with my own domain name. i create 2 users. Will I be able to see the emails sent to the users I created? If so, how do I enable that feature? Thank you
Great article by the way. Thanks.
Now showing it
You can create up to 50 accounts in your domain.
How to create 500 accounts
Contact outlook support for more accounts.
If you want users to use mail.yourdomain.com to sign in for email address, then you can create a CNAME record in your domain’s custom DNS settings or in cpanel’s Simple DNS Editor. Enter Mail in the Name field, and enter subdomain in CNAME field, e.g. mail.example.com.
this is not well explained. Could you please…
Using a subdomain will allow users to sign in to their accounts by typing in your domain name instead of outlook.com.
please how can i create the sub domain
If you want users to use mail.yourdomain.com to sign in for email address, then you can create a CNAME record in your domain’s custom DNS settings or in cpanel’s Simple DNS Editor. Enter Mail in the Name field, and enter subdomain in CNAME field, e.g. mail.example.com
…..Please can you provide a guide on how to create this? cos am using ipage and they said its not possible for me to have mail.businessname.com
thank you
Hi, thanks for your tutorial.
So after a week of waiting for the service to become active it is now saying that “Your service is suspended. Please make the required DNS changes.” Can somebody please help?
I’m having the same problem
Currently outlook allows 50 free Email addresses. If I need more Account then what is the procedure ?
Contact outlook support and they will extend your user account limit.
Very good article!!! It save me a lot of time
Thank you!
Hi I have a question, I bought my domain name off Godaddy, but I built the site and its being hosted by wix.com, I want to use my own domain with outlook so who do I update my mx and txt with godaddy or wix?
Hope to hear from you soon
Phil
Go Daddy if your domain is controlled by GoDaddy.
Thank you. I also got good email service.
Awesome post! Very user-friendly. This was almost effortless. I was up and running after about 10 minutes! Thanks.
Hi Syed, as said earlier I’ve done setting of my domains mails on outlook.com. Let me know how to configure this on blackberry and iPhone devices.
Thanks – Janarthanan
I want to view my old mails from my previous employers where we were using Outlook server. I have those .pst data files in my external hard disk. But don’t know how to configure them in Outlook 2013. Could any one please help me on the step by step guide. thanks.
Guys the New UI of outlook is tooooo slow. While loading it makes my PC also slow. Outllook can compete Gmail but will loss badly only due to his loading speed.
Check your computer. Due to the new Gmail compose debacle, I have been testing Outlook.com for the past few months in case Google makes the change permanent and mandatory. The only reason I don’t make the switch now is six years of company emails in twenty accounts. Not to mention everything that lives in Google Drive.
The Outlook UI is vastly superior to Gmail even without consideration of the new compose.
I already have an email account on Google Apps, if I were to move to Outlook, what would happen to emails that I already have in my existing accounts on changing the MX record ? Do I have to transfer my emails from google apps to outlook?
Thank you. I have successfully setup my professional email.
But can I go to mail.mydomain.com to check mail or must I go to outlook.com every time?
Hi,
I followed the steps and everything went fine. But when I started using the email, I can send emails, but not receive them. Any idea what can be the issues?
Thanks!
I have the exact same problem. help
Hi Ana,
Have you got the solution, did your mail work fine on both send & receive ways!
If you got the solution pls let me know.
Thanks
Hi Ana,
Did you get solution to your problem? Are you able to send/receive from your new email account. Please guide us as well.
Thanks,
Ankush
Hi! I finally finally got to the last part.. I had to login using my old @live.com account, I never saw the DNS options when trying to signup using just my domain name http://hempconnection.net
Anyways I was able to create an info@ email for my domain, but now where do I go to login? I tried mail.mydomain.net and I just see the last page I was on showing the emails I created, but not able to actually access my new email
Screw this, Outlook and Microsoft sucks… I’ve been trying for 3 hours.. this is freaking ridiculous
Me too, I’ve been trying for 3 days using chrome, maybe I should try using I.E.
Hi Syed,
I have my website already set up at windows live admin center and the emails are already in use by users.
But now i planned to migrating my domain from godaddy to a Blue Host (i came to know about the cheapest and best service of this host by reading your site), what should i do so the emails will not be deleted and users can continue using the same mails.
Pls give me clarification thru email or on you blog. It will be very helpful for me and all others.
Thanks in advance
Janarthanan
In your bluehost account setup the MX records. Then do the transfer, and it will work.
Hi Buddy, Thanks for the info. But i’ve a doubt, before transfering a domain from Godaddy how can i setup MX records in Bluehost for the same domain. PLs explain as i was a newbie on this field.
Thanks
In the DNS settings in your Bluehost cPanel, you can specify MX records. Bluehost support will be able to help you with this.
Hi Syed,
Thanks for your info, i followed your tuts, also as per your comment i get details from Blue Host too. Now i successfully transferred my domain. And all my emails associated to it (functions on outlook.com) work fine.
Thanks once again for your great tuts.
Janarthanan
Hi I set up my professional mail on outlook.com, it’s work fine for about a month but now when I send email to client it alway have hotmail_77425feceaf13aa1@live.com on behalf of my email, pls advise how to remove (hotmail_77425feceaf13aa1@live.com on behalf of my email)
hope to hear soon
all the best
Please contact outlook support, they would be able to help you better.
Guys,
Be careful when trying to create a “professional” email account that uses your domain; particularly when using Microsoft Outlook/Live/Hotmail…. It will send your email to the recipient, on receipt of your email the recipient will see “hotmail [a random number]@live.com ON BEHALF OF yourname@yourdomain,com”. This is not professional at all. Its actually less embarrassing than using a regular free @hotmail.com.
O, and Microsoft has no plans to correct this! I’ve tried several forums and made multiple requests.
All the best.
This isn’t true as far as I can tell. I have a couple of domains that use Outlook.com and all of them send as the actual sender. No ‘On Behalf Of’ appears anywhere – either in From: or even hidden in the message headers.
Now that Google isn’t offering a free version of Google Apps, Outlook.com is still your best bet for setting up a free, non-pop, e-mail system that can use your own domain.
Ed
Are u sure about this, does yourname@yourdomain.com not appear in the recipient mail?
Thanks for posting this Mohamed. There is no way I plan on using this now.
If you follow the directions and confirm that your DNS is configured properly and you are not sending your email through your live account as an alias of your professional domain, then this does not happen. I have mine setup and it works just fine. I have seen similar issues on Google Apps as well, but it is always due to mis-configuration.
I need a catch all alias to be sure to receive all the email adressess i used in the past…. How do i setup a catch-all with live domains? Can’t find it.
When switching from a paid hosted version with godaddy is there a way to save or move emails from the godaddy service to this free outlook.com setup?
Not entirely sure about that. Perhaps asking Godaddy would be best. Usually it is hard.
I have my website already set up at domains.live.com and the emails are already in use by users. Currently i’m migrating my domain to a new host, what should i do so the emails will not be have to be deleted and users can continue using the same mails?
If i add the mx records on the new host i can continue to use the mails on the same domains.live.com account I had?
Pls reply its important
Thanks