I own a domain called mystore.net and need customers to send emails to [email protected]. Since I prefer using Gmail, I want all incoming messages forwarded to my personal Gmail account [email protected] so I can respond using Gmail’s interface.
I’m planning to use Mailgun with AWS Route 53 for this setup. Here’s what I need for incoming emails:
[email protected] → [email protected] → Mailgun → (changes sender to [email protected]) → [email protected]
So when someone emails [email protected], it appears in my Gmail inbox.
For outgoing replies, I want this flow:
[email protected] → [email protected] → Mailgun → (changes sender from [email protected] to [email protected]) → [email protected]
Basically, when I reply to [email protected] from Gmail, Mailgun should automatically replace my Gmail address with [email protected] before sending it to the customer.
Is this possible to configure? What steps are needed to make this work?
Yeah, this can work but you need to nail the email headers and authentication. I built something like this for a client portal and hit some snags. The trick is setting up Mailgun’s inbound parsing right - you’ll need webhook endpoints that tweak the headers before forwarding. Heads up though: some email clients hate proxy addressing, especially corporate systems. I’ve seen forwarded emails land in spam because the authentication gets messy. Also expect slower delivery since you’re adding extra steps. Test the hell out of it with different providers before launch. Outlook and Yahoo are the worst for this stuff.
Yes, it’s definitely possible to configure this setup with Mailgun. From my experience, after setting up a similar system, you need to start by adjusting the MX records in Route 53 to direct them to Mailgun. Then, create the necessary routing rules in the Mailgun dashboard to ensure that emails sent to [email protected] are forwarded to your Gmail account while keeping the sender information intact.
For outgoing replies, configure Gmail to use Mailgun’s SMTP as an outgoing relay. This way, when you respond, it will show the email as coming from [email protected] instead of your personal Gmail address. It’s crucial to include correct SPF and DKIM records in Route 53; neglecting these settings can lead to deliverability issues. Additionally, keep in mind that forwarded emails might get flagged by some providers, so testing with various services beforehand is a wise step.
mailgun’s forwarding routes work great for this. set up your mx records first, then configure inbound routes in mailgun to forward the mail. the tricky bit is getting the reply-to headers right - otherwise when you hit reply in gmail, it won’t route back through the proxy. make sure you verify your domain in the mailgun console first or you’ll be stuck.