Caution: Custom Domain for iCloud Email BETA

A few days ago, Apple finally silently launched in beta their custom domain support in iCloud Mail. This is a fantastic feature that fulfils one of my wishes.

However, it indeed is very much in beta and the following are notable:

  • Apple’s guide to setup your custom domain.
  • Short email addresses cannot be used. One must have at least 3 characters before the @yourdomain.com. Therefore, I cannot use mc@merecivilian.com. I can use mere@merecivilian.com. UPDATE: this is now fixed YAY
  • DKIM is not yet implemented by Apple and therefore, the emails sent may be flagged as SPAM
  • Three email addresses per domain per account can be created. A family of six can have 18 email addresses for one domain. In addition, one can have 5 domains per account and/or per family.
  • Appears to work in Spark email if added as alias.
  • Not clear if one can use the Apple SMTP server to send email from third-party clients.

As we march towards official release, I am hoping many issues are ironed out because one does not want to bring their primary domain to iCloud and experience deliverability and/or reliability issues. Personally, the minimum 3 character limit on my personal domain is ridiculous.

I will keep this page updated because I am very much interested in hosting MereCivilian emails with iCloud Mail.

Hold on... there’s more