SiteGround is one of the most popular WordPress companies officially recommend by WordPress.org community. The advantage of using SiteGround hosting is that it comes with free email hosting. You can add a new email account for free and use catch all service to collect any emails sent to you domain to a particular email address. However, things will not work easily especially when you have Cloudflare CDN enabled for your SiteGround site. if you are stuck with email not working, here is how to properly setup SiteGround Webmail and add MX records in Cloudflare.
Related: How to setup GoDaddy email and MX records properly?
Setup Webmail in SiteGround
Below are the steps involved in entire setup process. You can follow the SiteGround DNS setup when you have the domain name pointing to SiteGround nameserver as explained in step #3. If you are using Cloudflare, you need to follow the instructions as explained in step #4.
1. Creating New Email Account in SiteGround
Login to your SiteGround account and go to “Websites” section. Click on “Site Tools” button below the domain in which you want to add an email account. When you are in the Site Tools section, go to “Email > Accounts” menu. Make sure to select your primary domain from the “Select Domain” dropdown. Under “Create New Email Account” section, enter your email address, password and click on “Create” button.
That’s it!!! You have now created a new email account and the details will be shown at the bottom of the screen instantly. Click on the three vertical dots menu against the email address and select “Log in to Webmail” option.
This will take you to the SiteGround’s Webmail interface. However, you need to setup proper MX records before sending and receiving email through SiteGround Webmail service.
Related: Using GoDaddy Microsoft Email? Here are the tips to use Microsoft 365 Email with GoDaddy like a pro.
2. Getting MX Records for Your Email Account
Next step is to find the MX records for your email address so that you have point the DNS properly. as per SiteGround’s support article, below are the MX records for their Webmail services.
| Priority | Destination |
|---|---|
| 10 | mx10.mailspamprotection.com |
| 20 | mx20.mailspamprotection.com |
| 30 | mx30.mailspamprotection.com |
3. Adding MX Records in SiteGround DNS Editor
If you are using domain purchased from SiteGround or pointing your domain’s nameservers to SiteGround server, then it is easy to add MX records. Go to “Domain > DNS Zone Editor” in Site Tools section. Click “MX” option under “Create New Record” section and provide the necessary details like below:
- Name – leave it blank for the primary domain.
- TTL – leave it as 24 hours
- Priority – type 10
- Destination – type mx10.mailspamprotection.com
Click “Create” button to add a new MX record and create another two records with priority 20 and 30 with detonation details as mx20.mailspamprotection.com and mx30.mailspamprotection.com respectively.
With this setup, you should be able to send and receive emails in SiteGround Webmail interface.
4. Adding MX Records in Cloudflare DNS
The above setup will work if you are using the latest SiteGround CDN setup. Since DNS routing happens within their own nameservers, it will work smoothly. However, the problem comes when you use third-party CDN services like Cloudflare. The above setup will not work no matter whether you use Cloudflare within SiteGround or setup directly through Cloudflare website. Many users will think simply adding the three MX records from step #2 in Cloudflare DNS will work. Unfortunately, that also will not work with SiteGround Webmail. Here is what you need to:
Check the website address in your Webmail interface. We use SiteGround Cloud hosting and the Webmail site address is showing as https://c20108.sgvps.net/webmail/mail. This will be different if you use shared hosting plan and note down the domain address like c20108.sgvps.net. Note that you can also find this server name from your hosting account.
Now, login to your Cloudflare account and navigate to DNS section of your domain. Click “Add record” button and add the following details:
- Type – select MS from the dropdown.
- Name (required) – type @ to use root domain.
- Mail server (required) – type your SiteGround mail server, in our case it is c20108.sgvps.net.
- Priority (required) – type 1, you can type anything between 0 – 65535.
Click “Save” button to create a new MX record pointing to SiteGround email server. Remember, you should only add this record and not other records offered by SiteGround as mentioned in section 2 above.
5. Testing Your Emails Through Webmail Interface
Now, go to Webmail page and click on “Compose” button to write a new email. Select “To” address as your personal Gmail or any other email address, fill up the subject, some dummy message and send the email to your personal address.
Similarly, send a testing email from your personal email address to SiteGround Webmail account. Make sure to test both incoming and outgoing emails are working fine. Remember, this is important as outgoing emails may work from Webmail but incoming emails will not work unless you configure DNS correctly. If you have problems, you will see the sent email to your SiteGround Webmail address will bounce back with failed delivery status. This is an indication that your Cloudflare or any other DNS setup is not correct and you need to check and setup as explained above.
6. Add Email Forwarder and Catch All Email
Once your email is working, next step is to setup catch all or email forwarder for your email account. Catch all option is useful when you want to automatically forward all emails sent to your domain to a primary email address. Similarly, forwarding is useful when you want to forward incoming emails to a specific email address which you have not created to your primary email address.
Go to “Email > Forwarders” section in your Site Tools account. Under “Forward” section, enter a specific email address in “Forward all messages sent to” box for email forwarding. If you want to use catch all option, then type * in this box. Type your primary email address in “To email address” box and click “Create” button. You will immediately see the rule created showing the details.
7. Setting Up SiteGround Email in Phone and Desktop
Finally, it is also easy to setup SiteGround Webmail in your smartphone or desktop’s email client. Click on the three vertical dots icon showing against the new email account you have created in Site Tools account under “Email > Accounts” section. You will see list of menu items and select “Mail Configuration” option.
On the pop-up that appears, go to “Manual Settings”. Here you can find your email address, incoming IMAP/POP servers and outgoing SMTP server details with port numbers.
You can add these details in your device’s email client to add SiteGround Webmail service. In this way, you can start using the email directly from your device without logging into your SiteGround or Webmail account.
Note: You can also get all details like configurations and setup forwarders, autoresponders and reset password right from the Webmail interface instead of accessing them through Site Tools section.
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