Every runbook here is a workflow we ran end to end before writing it down.
Datarunbook

Problem

I want email on my own domain and I want it to actually arrive

Mail from a brand-new domain is the easiest kind to lose. Getting it set up is one afternoon; getting it delivered is the part nobody writes down.

Who has this: Anyone launching a site or a business who needs hello@theirdomain.

Setting up an address is the easy half, and most guides stop there. The half that goes wrong is everything around it: which records the mail actually follows, what happens when two services both think they own them, and whether anything you send is trusted by the receiving end.

A domain that has never sent mail has no reputation. That is not a problem to solve later; it is the reason the first send matters.

What we have published

RunbookI want email on my own domain and I want it to actually arrive

Set up email on your own domain so that it actually arrives

Getting hello@yourdomain working takes about forty-five minutes and costs nothing. One step decides whether the mail arrives, and it is not the one you expect.

  1. Pick a mailbox, not a forwarder
  2. Create the account and choose the data center
  3. Turn off anything that already handles mail for the domain
  4. and 4 more steps
Tools this needsZoho Mailfree tier is enoughCloudflarefree tier is enough

Time 45 minLevel beginner

Open the runbook