Using Gmail as the client for a domain's email traffic

Now that Google Apps is no longer free for new domains, I was wondering if there was a way to automatically relay both incoming and outgoing emails through my server so that I can continue to (invisibly) use my main Gmail account to read and reply to emails.

For example, if someone sends an email to mike@xyz.com I want it to be forwarded to my Gmail id (easy enough), but I also want to relay my replies (written using Gmail) back through my own email server, so that it looks like the reply is coming directly from mike@xyz.com. The reply would have no reference to my Gmail address at all.

I'm guessing this will involve some scripting to modify the headers and/or content of the incoming and outgoing emails - (at the very least, to remove my Gmail id) but I'm not sure where to start – i.e. which packages are best suited for the job, or even if there is a tool out there I can install that can do this for me.

A few pointers would be much appreciated.

(Note: The volume of emails would be very light -- probably no more than a few a day.)

Mike

2 Replies

I believe what you would like to do is configure the "Send mail as" feature of gmail. If you go to Settings-Accounts-"Send mail as", it will allow you to add your own email address. I believe you will also want to uncheck the "Treat as alias" option. It will then give you the option to send through your SMTP server. As long as your mail server supports SMTP authentication, this should work. See the documentation at

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22370?rd=1

I did not actually run through this myself but I remember aliasing another gmail.com account to my main address in the past with no issues.

Gary Thorne

Exactly as above. You have to use your own (or your domain's) authenticating SMTP server (instead of Google's server), otherwise Outlook readers will see your From line as "sent from user@yourdomain.com on behalf of user@gmail.com", which you don't want.

I'm going through setting this up right now as a test platform for a client. You can also set Gmail to reply as the address the message was sent to, so you don't reply as your personal account by mistake (this is in account settings just under where you add additional send-as accounts).

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