You have a domain but still use a gmail.com or hotmail.com email? In this guide, I’ll show you how to create a professional email address with your own domain, and it’s completely free.

Emails sent to info@yourdomain.com will land in your Gmail inbox You can send emails as info@yourdomain.com from Gmail You won’t pay anything

Why Should You Use Email With Your Own Domain?

Professionalism: ozer@yayinliyor.com looks much more professional than yayinliyor@gmail.com.

Trust: Clients and business partners trust someone who uses their own domain more.

Branding: Every email you send will promote your domain and your brand.

Flexibility: You can create as many email addresses as you want: info@, support@, contact@, ozer@… etc.

What Do You Need?

• A domain

• Gmail account

• Cloudflare Account (it’s free)

• A bit of time

Step 1: Add Your Domain to Cloudflare

Go to cloudflare.com and create an account/sign in.

In the Dashboard, click the Add a domain or Onboard a domain button.

Enter your domain and make sure Quick scan for DNS records is selected. Click Continue.

Here it will ask you to select a plan. We can proceed with the Free plan, what we’re doing is completely free.

Cloudflare will scan your existing DNS records. These records are important because we want your site to keep working.

Step 2: Activate Email Routing

Go to Email > Email Routing from the left menu.

Click the Get started button.

Create a Custom Address

First, decide which email address you want to use:

• Custom address: The name you want to use (e.g., ozer, info, support)

• Destination: The Gmail address where emails will be forwarded

Verify the Destination Address

Cloudflare will send a verification email to your Gmail address. Go to Gmail and click the link in the email.

Add DNS Records

Cloudflare will show you the required MX and TXT records. Click the Add records and enable button.

These records include:

• MX records: For routing emails to Cloudflare

• TXT records: SPF and DKIM (to prevent emails from going to spam)

Step 3: Change Your Nameservers

This is the most critical step. For Cloudflare to work, you need to change your domain’s nameservers.

On the page, you’ll see Show nameserver instructions under Next steps. Click it to see the required steps.

Cloudflare will give you two nameserver addresses:

desiree.ns.cloudflare.com etienne.ns.cloudflare.com

(Your nameservers may be different)

Change Nameservers at Your Domain Provider

Go to wherever you purchased your domain (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace, etc.) and find the DNS/Nameserver settings.

GoDaddy example:

• Go to domain settings

• Open the DNS tab

• Find the Nameservers section

• Delete the existing nameservers

• Add Cloudflare’s nameservers

• Save

Squarespace example:

• Go to the Domains page

• Navigate to DNS > Domain Nameservers

• Click Use Custom Nameservers and add the relevant NS records

• Save

Nameserver changes can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours. Usually it’s active within 30 minutes to 1 hour.

If you don’t want to change nameservers, you can manually add Cloudflare’s DNS records to your current DNS provider. However, you won’t be able to benefit from Cloudflare’s CDN and security features.

Step 4: Set Up “Send mail as” in Gmail

So far, we’ve only set up receiving emails. Now let’s set up sending emails from your own domain using Gmail.

Create an App Password

We’ll use Gmail’s SMTP server. This requires an App Password.

• Go to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords

• If you can’t find it, search for

  app passwords

  in your Google Account

• Create a new App Password (name it something like “domain mail”)

• Google will give you a 16-character password, copy it

• You can close this page after completing the steps

Note: You need to have 2-Step Verification enabled on your account to create an App Password.

Gmail Settings

• Open Gmail

• Click the gear icon in the top right → See all settings

• Go to the Accounts and Import tab

• In the Send mail as section, click Add another email address

Add Email Address

In the popup window:

Step 1:

• Name: Your Name

• Email address: ozer@yayinliyor.com (your address)

• Keep Treat as an alias checked

Step 2 (SMTP Settings):

• SMTP Server: http://smtp.gmail.com/

• Port: 587

• Username: Your Gmail address (e.g., ozersubasi.dev@gmail.com)

• Password: The 16-character App Password you just created

• Keep Secured connection using TLS selected

Click the Add Account button.

Verification

Gmail will send a verification email to the address you added. This email will land in your Gmail inbox (because we already set up forwarding). Enter the code from the email or click the link.

Step 5: Test It

Everything is ready! Let’s test it.

Test Receiving Email

Send a test email from another email address (e.g., a different Gmail) to your domain email address. It should land in your Gmail inbox.

Test Sending Email

Create a new email in Gmail. In the From field, you’ll now see two options:

• Your Gmail address

• Your domain email address

Select your domain address and send a test email.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You now have a professional email address with your own domain.

• Incoming emails are automatically forwarded to Gmail

• You can send emails from your own domain using Gmail

• All of this is completely free!

As a bonus, since you switched to Cloudflare, you also got free CDN, DDoS protection, and SSL certificate.

Is Cloudflare free? Yes, all basic features including Email Routing are free. There’s no traffic limit either.

Will changing nameservers affect my site? No, Cloudflare copies your existing DNS records. Your site will continue to work the same way.

Can I create multiple email addresses? Yes, you can create up to 100 addresses with Cloudflare Email Routing.

Will emails go to spam? They shouldn’t, since SPF and DKIM records are properly configured. Cloudflare adds these automatically.