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this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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Privacy
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It pays in the long run to have your own domain for your email. Most providers can host your domain for a (usually) small fee, then you will never lose your addresses, even if your provider disappears.
This is definitely the best protection. If the provider drops you, you move your domain to another provider. But, as far as I know, while almost all email providers will host your personal domain, none that I know of will do it on the free plans. But your email is your identity. You should be willing to pay for it, especially if you host it on a provider that otherwise won't make any money on you.
There are a couple of downsides. If you forget, or are unable, to renew your domain, you lose it and your emails. Make sure another family member or friend can pay the renewal for you if, for some reason, you cannot.
While your own domain makes it far less likely that your email will be canceled (because you can move it), abuse of your domain can result in your losing your domain name and your email, especially before it has earned a reputation.
Which brings up another IMPORTANT point. If you use your own domain name, then you must set up your DNS records to protect your domain from spoofers and spammers so it doesn't get blacklisted or, worse, doesn't cause cancellation of your domain name. Scammers and spammers WILL try to send email using your domain name. You need to tell email clients to toss these rogue emails and give them the means to determine spoofing and unauthorized use. Read this: https://www.valimail.com/blog/dmarc-dkim-spf-explained/
Also, be aware that SpamAssassin considers .com, .net, and .org TLDs to be far safer than .world, .online, .blog, and most others. Using one of these newer TLDs results in a higher spam score, and your email is more likely to end up in the spam folder if it reaches the magic score of 5. A new age TLD can add as much as 1 point to the spam calculation depending on the email provider receiving your email.
So your own domain name is safer but costs money and requires more work.
Usually the provider will provide a step by step guide to set up the entries in DNS for DKIM and DMARC, so you shouldn’t need to understand what they are, but it definitely helps. :)
(Also, if a provider doesn’t support DKIM or walk you through setting it up, I would not recommend them.)
It really doesn't. Years ago I started using my own domain on one of the less desirable TLDs of the late 2000's. By the 2020's though, anything that's not .blarg or .pizza or some bullshit is considered premium and so the cost to keep owning the domain I bought exponentially rose until I said "fuck it" to the cost. You never own a domain, you rent it, and the rent can spike by an infinite amount over time.
A .com is like $9 a year.
So is every other non-.pizza domain, which is ridiculous, also that's for like somereallybadlongname.com. coolsite.info should NOT cost a dollar a month to exist.
At the moment I’m typing this, these great domain names are available:
Oh and if you want spicy ones that are expensive:
Screenshotted just in case.
Do you think I am denying that one can purchase domains? Are you slow?
- @bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net
Can you please provide an example of such provider?
Proton, Gmail, Outlook (or Copilot, they’re probably calling it by now), my own email service Port87, all offer custom domain support. I definitely would recommend against whatever you get offered in the checkout process of your domain name, cause it’s usually very low quality hosting.
So if I make my own domain, user@funkylemmy.com, then I can ask Gmail to host it, and when I'm tired of google, I can ask another provider?
Yep. :) All you have to do is change some DNS entries, and the new provider will start receiving mail for the same address.
Yes, exactly.
Once you own the domain, you can swap out the infrastructure behind it any time you wish. You're not locked to any email service.
Yes, you change your DNS settings so that your domain points to the new provider servers and recreate your email addresses there. You won't have the old emails unless you backed them up and restored them but the address will be the same.
Where do I begin?
I made a video for it. :) It shows how to set up Port87, but the process should be pretty similar for other providers.
https://youtu.be/C1FSFhF-1F4