Set Up Email Hosting with Your Own Domain
Create a professional email address on your own domain, connect it to your phone and laptop, and set up the DNS records that keep it out of spam. cPanel and Enhance.
7 min read
A professional email address uses your own domain, like [email protected], instead of [email protected]. It looks more trustworthy, you keep the address for as long as you keep the domain, and it costs nothing extra: email hosting is included with GoZen shared and WordPress hosting, and built into the Enhance panel on VPS and Cloud plans.
This guide takes you from an empty account to a working mailbox on your phone, laptop and webmail, with the DNS records that stop your messages landing in spam. Plan on about 15 minutes, plus some waiting if you change DNS.
What You Need
- A domain name, registered at GoZen or anywhere else (register one if you don’t have it yet)
- A GoZen Host hosting plan
- The domain pointed to GoZen’s nameservers. See Pointing Your Domain to Your Server if you haven’t done that
Shared and WordPress hosting use cPanel. VPS and Cloud plans use Enhance. Where the two differ, the steps below show both.
Step 1: Create Your Mailbox
Which Addresses Should You Create?
| Address | Use it for |
|---|---|
info@ or hello@ | Your main public address, the one on your website |
yourname@ | Your own business email |
support@ | Customer questions, if you have customers who need help |
admin@ | Domain verifications, registrar and hosting notices |
One or two is plenty to start with. If you only want an address to pass mail on to another inbox, you don’t need a mailbox at all: create a forwarder instead (see cPanel email accounts or Enhance email).
Step 2: Check It in Webmail
Before setting up any apps, make sure the mailbox works.
cPanel hosting uses Roundcube webmail. Open any of these:
https://yourdomain.com/webmailhttps://yourdomain.com:2096- cPanel → Email → Email Accounts → Check Email next to the account
Enhance hosting: open https://webmail.yourdomain.com.
Log in with the full email address and its password, then send yourself a test message.
Step 3: Add It to Your Phone and Computer
Every mail app asks for the same settings:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Account type | IMAP |
| Incoming server | mail.yourdomain.com |
| Incoming port | 993, SSL/TLS |
| Outgoing server (SMTP) | mail.yourdomain.com |
| Outgoing port | 465, SSL/TLS (or 587 with STARTTLS if 465 is blocked) |
| Username | Your full email address (e.g., [email protected]) |
| Password | The mailbox password from Step 1 |
Choose IMAP, not POP3. IMAP keeps your phone, laptop and webmail in sync; POP3 downloads messages to one device and can delete them from the server.
| App | How |
|---|---|
| Outlook (Windows, Mac, mobile) | Set Up GoZen Email in Outlook |
| Gmail (read and send from your Gmail account) | Set Up GoZen Email in Gmail |
| iPhone / iPad | Settings → Mail → Accounts → Add Account → Other → Add Mail Account, then the settings above |
| Android | Gmail app → Add another account → Other, then the settings above |
| Apple Mail / Thunderbird | Add a new account, choose IMAP, then the settings above |
Step 4: Set Up DNS So Your Mail Isn’t Marked as Spam
A new mailbox can receive mail as soon as the MX record points to GoZen. Sending is where people get caught out: Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo check three records before they trust a message from your domain, and they push unauthenticated mail into spam or reject it.
Where the Records Go
- Domain using GoZen’s nameservers, on cPanel: cPanel → Email → Email Deliverability creates the SPF and DKIM records for you. Click Repair next to any warning.
- Domain using GoZen’s nameservers, on Enhance: Enhance adds MX and SPF itself; you switch DKIM on and add DMARC (below).
- DNS hosted elsewhere (your registrar, Cloudflare, etc.): add every record below there, by hand.
4.1 - MX Record (Where Mail Is Delivered)
On GoZen nameservers this is set automatically. If your DNS is elsewhere, it should look like this:
Type: MX
Host: @
Value: mail.yourdomain.com
Priority: 0
TTL: 3600
4.2 - SPF Record (Who May Send for Your Domain)
cPanel: use the exact record from Email Deliverability → Manage, which already contains your server’s IP address, and change its ending from ~all to -all. Added by hand, it takes this form:
Type: TXT
Host: @
Value: v=spf1 ip4:YOUR.SERVER.IP -all
Replace YOUR.SERVER.IP with your hosting server’s IP address. If you also send through Google Workspace, Mailchimp or another service, put them in the same record:
v=spf1 ip4:YOUR.SERVER.IP include:_spf.google.com -all
Enhance: an SPF record (v=spf1 a mx ~all) is created for you. Edit it only to add other services that send as your domain.
A domain can have only one SPF record. Two records starting with v=spf1 break both.
The -all ending tells receivers to reject mail from servers that aren’t listed. If other services send email as your domain and you’re not sure they’re all in the record, start with ~all instead. Hard fail or soft fail? explains the difference.
4.3 - DKIM (A Signature on Every Message)
cPanel: Email → Email Deliverability → Manage next to your domain → Install the suggested record if DKIM isn’t active.
Enhance: Websites → your website → Domains → your domain → Email authentication → switch DKIM on. With DNS hosted elsewhere, copy the record Enhance shows into your DNS provider. Details in Email Authentication in Enhance.
4.4 - DMARC (What to Do When a Check Fails)
Neither panel adds this one, so create it yourself:
Type: TXT
Host: _dmarc
Value: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]
p=none only collects reports, so nothing gets blocked while you check that your real mail passes. After two to four weeks of clean reports, move to p=quarantine, then p=reject.
The full explanation of all three records is in Email Authentication: SPF, DKIM & DMARC.
Step 5: Test It
- Send a message from your new address to a Gmail and an Outlook account
- Check it arrives in the inbox, not spam
- Reply from those accounts to confirm mail comes back to you
Then confirm the records:
- mail-tester.com scores a test message out of 10. Aim for 9 or more
- GoZen DNS Inspector checks MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC in one scan
- GoZen Blacklist Check shows whether your server’s IP is on a blocklist
In Gmail you can also open the test message → ⋮ → Show original. You want to see:
SPF: PASS
DKIM: PASS
DMARC: PASS
If any line says FAIL, go back to that record in Step 4.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| “Authentication failed” in Outlook or Gmail | The username must be the full email address, not just the part before the @. Then recheck the password |
| Can receive but can’t send | Check the outgoing port: 465 with SSL/TLS, or 587 with STARTTLS. Some home and office networks block one of them |
| “Certificate mismatch” warning | Use mail.yourdomain.com as the server name, not the server’s own hostname or IP |
| Mail goes to spam | Run mail-tester.com. A missing SPF, DKIM or DMARC record is the usual cause |
| No mail arriving at all | The MX record is missing or still points to your old provider. Check it with the GoZen DNS Inspector |
| Some mail still lands at your old provider | MX changes take time to spread, up to 48 hours. Keep the old mailbox open until it stops receiving |
More fixes in Email Delivery Problems.
Related Articles
- Setting Up Email Accounts in cPanel - quotas, forwarders, catch-all, autoresponders
- Enhance Email Management - the same on VPS and Cloud plans
- Email Authentication: SPF, DKIM & DMARC - the three DNS records in depth
- Zero-Downtime Email Migration - move existing mailboxes from another provider
- Email Delivery Problems - spam, bounces and missing mail
- Free Migration - we move your email and website together, on every plan
Last updated 05 Oct 2026, 00:00 +0200.