Move your domain's mail to Rookery

Forwarding brings one address at a time. Moving your domain brings them all: every address at yourcompany.com comes straight to Rookery, because your domain's MX record (the DNS record that says where its mail goes) points here.

Owners and admins set it up, once per domain. It takes a few minutes of work, and nothing changes for your mail until the very last step.

Before you start

Changing MX moves all of the domain's mail at once, for every address. From that moment, your current mail service stops getting new mail for it (what's already there stays there).

So first, make sure every address that gets mail today has a home in Rookery:

• Each person and team address is an inbox here, or forwards to one already. An inbox counts for an address when it's the inbox's own address, an alias of it, the address it's forwarded from, or the address it sends as.
• Shared and machine addresses count too: billing@, jobs@, a form or a printer that sends to an address.
• Anything else can go to one inbox you choose, a catch-all. Or Rookery holds it for you to look at.

A domain that's one of this Rookery's own (set up on its own account, not through your DNS host) shows Sends only: its mail can't come in through an MX record set up here, because whoever runs this Rookery routes it on that account instead.

Set it up

1. In Settings → Inboxes, click Open next to Receive at your domain.
2. Enter your domain and click Set up. If you already send as your domain, it's there already: open it.
3. Verify the domain, if it isn't yet: add the two signing records the page shows. They're the same records sending as your domain uses, so if you send as it already, there's nothing to add.
4. Every address: the page lists each address at your domain that reaches an inbox here, and which. Under Anything else, choose an inbox for the rest, or leave it to hold them for you.
5. Start receiving: read the checklist, tick the box, and click Start receiving.
6. Add the ownership record: a TXT record named _rookery-receive with the value the page shows (it starts rookery-receive=). It proves the domain is yours for this setup, and it's new every time you set receiving up. Keep it for as long as your mail comes to Rookery: if it's taken away, Rookery stops delivering.
7. Change the MX record, once the page says the TXT record is Found: replace your domain's MX records with the one the page shows, and remove the others.

The mail server's value is our mail provider's server name. It's the one place that name shows: an MX record has to name a mail server directly, so it can't be a Rookery name.

While Rookery checks

• The page says Waiting for MX until the record points here, then Receiving. Rookery checks by itself, often at first and then every few hours. Click Check now any time. DNS changes usually show within an hour.
• Partly moved means another MX record is still there, so some mail still goes to your old service. The page lists it: remove it.
• Once receiving, the page shows when the last email arrived.

Where each email goes

Each address goes to its inbox, the same way as mail that's forwarded: Rookery reads it, sorts it, threads it and checks it for scams. A +tag after the name (sales+quotes@) goes to the same inbox as the address without it.

Mail to an address no inbox has goes to your Anything else inbox. With none chosen, it waits under Held mail on the domain's page, where an owner or admin can Deliver it to an inbox or Delete it. Rookery never bounces it back: once mail has arrived, a bounce goes to whatever the sender's address claims to be, which for spam is usually someone innocent.

Mail that carries a virus is never delivered to anyone. Rookery keeps it apart, and its team can see it.

Likely spam is delivered with a note on it, so you and Rookery's scam checks decide.

Very large emails (over 25 MB) wait under Held mail.

Stop receiving

Point the MX record back at your old mail service first, then click Stop receiving on the domain's page. From that moment Rookery puts nothing more in your inboxes; anything that still arrives is kept apart and never delivered. The page then lists the records to remove: the MX record, if it still points here, and the _rookery-receive TXT record. To receive here again later, you start again with a new TXT record.

Why so strict: if a domain's records are left pointing at Rookery after it leaves, nobody else who adds that domain can ever receive its mail.

Each change is recorded in Settings → Security and activity.