How to use Cloudflare and Namecheap email forwarding at the same time?

Question

I want to use Cloudflare, and it requires that I use their nameservers.

The problem is that I'm using some features from Namecheap like email forwarding, which will be disabled (if I didn't get it wrong) if I don't use Namecheap's nameservers.

Any ideas?

Solution 1

I have tried this solution

http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/19043/how-to-set-up-email-forwarding-for-your-domain-using-mailgun

So far, it seems to work for me even though my domain is still not yet verified. (Still in the early 24-48 hours to verify the MX records etc)

Basically the solution is to use mailgun and setup the email forwarding using their Routes services.

So far, I can receive and send. Will update in another 24 hours time once my domain is verified in mailgun.

UPDATE after 48 hours it works

UPDATE after many many days later I realize I should have reproduced the article here in case it dies.

All credit goes to the article.

Step 1: Signup for a free account in mailgun.com

Step 2: Log into your account in Mailgun and add a domain from the top menubar. Once your domain is added, you will see that mailgun gives you a few MX records and TXT records to be added for your domain, for both successful email forwarding and verification of the domain.

Step 3: Now go to your domain's DNS panel and add those MX records and TXT records provided by Mailgun.

Step 4: This is the final step. Log into your Mailgun account and go to Routes section from the top menu. Now add as many routes as you want. For example, if your domain is example.com and you want all the mails sent to [email protected] to be forwarded to [email protected] then create a route like this screenshot and you are done:

Solution 2

1. Register a free account at mailgun.org
2. add a mailgun MX record to your Cloudflare DNS
3. set up a forwarding rule at mailgun
4. Enjoy.

Solution 3

You can just use https://forwardemail.net. I made it completely open-source, free, encrypted, and private. There's a section on "How it works" on the website, along with a FAQ and list of features. You can even "Send Mail As" using Gmail.

Solution 4

You can also sign up with Zoho Mail, which is free. It's a full mail service provider like Google Apps and includes a mail forwarding service as well.

However, if all you need is forwarding, I find its a bit delayed. You'll also want to disable their aggressive spam filter, which prevents some mail from being forwarded. Mailgun is a better option for just forwarding.

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

I feel you... I have exactly the same problem, neither talking to namecheap nor cloudflare provided me with a decent alternative... I had asked the same question here: serverfault.com/questions/448419/… I have 100+ domains and for many of them I just need a forwarding to a central email address (which is hosted on google apps) however google apps also has a limit on the number of aliases you can have (around 20-50 if i'm not wrong) so can't go that way really...

[Admin]

I've been talking to namecheap recently. Subscribe to our free trial of Open Exchange they said. You will have email forwarding they said... xD. I subscribed but I couldn't find it, so now I'm waiting for a response on whether I can have a catch-all email at least, someone from support thought it was possible. I hope they add that (or email forwarding) to the interface, or it will be a pain.

[Admin]

In the same boat here. What I ended up doing is using hostgator email forwarding on their shard hosting packages with this setup. Costs me around $7/month but saves a ton of headache

[Admin]

As Kim Stacks mentioned, here's a solution that works: lowendtalk.com/discussion/19043/…

[Admin]

See my answer below! forwardemail.net is the best solution.

[William Hilton]

Yup. This is exactly what I did.

[Ganesh Krishnan]

This works. Thanks for the answer and thank you mailgun! I have setup a catch all for my email address so any email send to my domain is routed to my personal email account

[Pulseczar]

I followed your advice (which someone also wrote here chrisanthropic.com/blog/2014/…), and I've completed all the steps in my CloudFlare account, and when I press the Check DNS Records Now button on Mailgun.com, everything passes (gets a green check box) except the "Add DNS Records For Receiving (Optional)" section, where the 2 MX records have an orange warning icon that says "We couldn't find this record when we checked your DNS records. This is only required if you want to use our inbound routes feature." Should this immediately work?

[W.M.]

In case I own a Linux based public cloud server, is in the same possible using Postfix? I mean, to point MX records to my server, which in turn forwards to another email address.

[Ohad Schneider]

Zoho once deleted my catch-all address with no notice or notification, and one day I found out I wasn't receiving e-mail for months.

[AndyO]

Note that this is no longer free - see also the discussion here: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22197445

[alfred]

@AndyO Thanks for the discussion and indeed MailGun is charging quite a bit for receiving emails (as of today they will charge $35 per month). I have been using MailGun for the past two years and it is rather sad that I have to look for an alternative now.

[AndyO]

@alfred Good luck. After looking at the alternatives, I've decided to simply use my gmail address for business purposes. May not look as professional but at least it's reliable and there is no false positive spam bouncing.

[Michael_S_]

Works as a charm. Thank you sir!

[mkuech]

"and includes a mail forwarding service as well" -- No longer the case for free accounts in April, 2020.

[niftylettuce]

You're welcome @Michael_S_

[niftylettuce]

We added webhook support this month, our service is now pretty much a complete alternative to Mailgun. See forwardemail.net (we're free, 100% open-source, and privacy-focused).

[nicorellius]

Unfortunately, Mailgun no longer offers free "receiving" email (June 2020). You can get a free-ish flexible account for sending up to 5K messages, but receiving is out. Really unfortunate for those of us who have several domains we want to receive very few emails to...

[kureikain]

Though not free but our service hanami.run is very affordable as well. We support webhook so you can process incoming email. Plus, we run our own SMTP server so you can send email through as well. Though we don't have IMAP so we aren't a full feature mail solution. Just forwarding and SMTP for sending out.