I run a business website called myshop.com and need customers to email [email protected]. Since I prefer using Gmail, I want all these emails forwarded to my personal Gmail account [email protected] so I can respond directly from Gmail.
I’m planning to use Mailgun with AWS Route 53 for this setup. Here’s what I need to achieve:
Incoming emails:
[email protected] → [email protected] → Mailgun → [email protected] → [email protected]
When customers email [email protected], it should appear in my Gmail inbox.
Outgoing replies:
[email protected] → [email protected] → Mailgun → [email protected] → [email protected]
When I reply from Gmail to [email protected], Mailgun should change the sender from my Gmail address to [email protected] before delivering to the customer.
Is this workflow possible with Mailgun? What configuration steps are needed to make both directions work properly?
I’ve done something similar for my consulting business, but took a different route that might work better. Mailgun handles forwarding fine, but the reply part gets messy - Gmail can’t easily change the ‘from’ address like you need. I ended up just using Google Workspace to handle the custom domain email directly. You get native send/receive from [email protected] without any proxy headaches. It’s cheap for one user and avoids deliverability problems from bouncing emails through multiple services. If you’re set on Mailgun, you’ll need their Routes API for forwarding and Send API for replies, but that means custom scripts to intercept and process replies. Plus the authentication and SPF setup gets complicated.
Mailgun can handle this, but replies are tricky. Incoming forwarding works fine with Mailgun Routes, but outgoing emails have to go through Mailgun’s API - you can’t just reply from Gmail and have it automatically route through Mailgun to change the sender address. You’d need middleware that watches your Gmail for replies to the proxy address, then uses Mailgun’s Send API to relay them with the right from address. This usually means IMAP monitoring or webhooks. Don’t forget authentication - you’ll need SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records set up for myshop.com or deliverability will suffer. I built something like this with a Python script that polls Gmail via IMAP and forwards through Mailgun’s API. It works but adds complexity and delays. Test it thoroughly with different email providers since some will flag relay setups as suspicious.
this setup’s way too complicated. just use gmail’s “send mail as” feature - you can send directly from [email protected] without the mailgun mess. set up smtp forwarding from your domain to gmail, configure the outbound smtp settings, and you’re done. no custom scripts, way simpler.