--- title: "Connect a domain" description: "OpenEmail receives on domains you own. Free covers one, Starter five, Business ten, Enterprise as many as you want. With catch-all on, every address on a verified domain works from the moment the DNS is live." url: "https://openemail.uk/docs/get-started/domain" area: "Get started" category: "Setup" --- # Connect a domain OpenEmail receives on domains you own. Free covers one, Starter five, Business ten, Enterprise as many as you want. With catch-all on, every address on a verified domain works from the moment the DNS is live. ## What to do 1. Go to Settings → Domains and enter the domain, without a scheme or path: acme.com. 2. Publish every record shown for it in your own DNS, or connect Cloudflare on the Providers tab and press Sync on the domain. One sync writes every record the domain needs in one go, the MX included, and replaces anything already at those names. The SPF record is the exception: it keeps any other senders it already lists. 3. If the domain already receives mail somewhere else, that sync replaces its MX records and mail starts arriving here instead. Make sure you are ready for that before you press it. 4. The TXT record at _openemail-challenge.acme.com is what proves the domain is yours. A sync writes that one too, so it is only yours to add when you are publishing by hand. 5. The signing record is ready the moment you add the domain, so it goes up with everything else rather than arriving later. A sync verifies the domain for receiving as it finishes, and sending follows a couple of minutes after the signing record resolves. When you publish by hand, we re-check the records on our own and switch sending on shortly after they answer. 6. Finish within 7 days. A domain that is still unverified after that is released, so anyone who owns it can add it, and you add it again once your records are in place. 7. Catch-all is on from the start, so every address on the domain works the moment DNS resolves. Turn it off in the domain’s Settings tab if you would rather only the names you create are accepted. Everything else then bounces. > Verification checks two things: that the MX records bring mail here, and that the challenge TXT proves the domain is yours. Every domain we receive for publishes the same MX hosts, so without the token anyone who typed your domain could claim it. ## Tracking domain Once the domain’s ownership TXT at _openemail-challenge.acme.com is published, tracked links and the open pixel in mail from it can use a subdomain of your own instead of the OpenEmail address. The domain does not have to be receiving mail yet. You choose the name and add one DNS record. The HTTPS certificate for it is issued automatically. 1. Open the domain under Settings → Domains. Its Tracking tab has links.acme.com filled in. 2. Keep links.acme.com or type any other subdomain of acme.com, then press Set up. 3. Add the CNAME record shown at your DNS provider, with the Name and Value it lists. Use a plain CNAME with any proxying turned off. The Value is an address prepared for this name alone, so copy it rather than typing it. On a domain connected to Cloudflare you add nothing: Set up writes the record into your zone, or the next Sync does if the address was still being prepared. 4. Leave the record in place and keep the Tracking tab open. It checks on its own, and the status reads Active once a check passes. > If no record is shown yet, the address it points at is still being prepared. It appears within a few minutes, with no need to set the name up again. > Until the check passes, the status reads Pending and links keep using the OpenEmail address. If a name that worked keeps failing its checks, it reads Not working and links go back to the OpenEmail address until it passes again. Links in mail you already sent keep the name they went out with, and after you change or remove the tracking domain they keep working as long as its CNAME record stays in place. On a domain connected to Cloudflare, changing or removing the name takes the old record out of your zone right away, so links in mail you already sent stop working. If you set a name up again later, check the record it shows, since it can differ from the one you added before. - [Tracking on your own domain](https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/writing/tracking-domain.md): How the check works, and when links fall back to the OpenEmail address. ## Files domain Once the domain’s ownership TXT at _openemail-challenge.acme.com is published, the download links for files you send from it can use a subdomain of your own instead of the OpenEmail address. The domain does not have to be receiving mail yet. You choose the name and add one DNS record. The HTTPS certificate for it is issued automatically. 1. Open the domain under Settings → Domains. Its Files tab has files.acme.com filled in. 2. Keep files.acme.com or type any other subdomain of acme.com, then press Set up. 3. Add the CNAME record shown at your DNS provider, with the Name and Value it lists. Use a plain CNAME with any proxying turned off. The Value is an address prepared for this name alone, so copy it rather than typing it. On a domain connected to Cloudflare you add nothing: Set up writes the record into your zone, or the next Sync does if the address was still being prepared. 4. Leave the record in place and keep the Files tab open. It checks on its own, and the status reads Active once a check passes. > If no record is shown yet, the address it points at is still being prepared. It appears within a few minutes, with no need to set the name up again. > Until the check passes, the status reads Pending and files keep using the OpenEmail address. If a name that worked keeps failing its checks, it reads Not working and files go back to the OpenEmail address until it passes again. Download links in mail you already sent keep the name they went out with, and after you change or remove the files domain they keep working as long as its CNAME record stays in place. On a domain connected to Cloudflare, changing or removing the name takes the old record out of your zone right away, so download links in mail you already sent stop working. If you set a name up again later, check the record it shows, since it can differ from the one you added before. > The files domain and the tracking domain are two separate names on the same domain, and one name cannot be both. Setting up either leaves the other exactly as it was. - [Files on your own domain](https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/writing/storage-domain.md): How the check works, and when downloads fall back to the OpenEmail address.