Greg: If they are the same account (same characters before the @ symbol) then your @icloud.com, @mac.com and @me.com email addresses are all the same. Apple treats these as the same and all email goes to the same mailbox. But if they are different before the @ symbol, then they are completely different email accounts. Many people have multiple Gmail accounts, each with its own email address. Each free Gmail account comes with 15GB of inbox storage space, enough to hold around 300,000 messages before you have to start deleting some to make room for incoming email. You can always choose to convert to a paid email account and get unlimited storage.

Review these scenarios to see which one applies to you:

• If you created an iCloud account on or after September 19, 2012, your email address ends with @icloud.com. Learn more about @icloud.com mail addresses.
• If you created an iCloud account before September 19, 2012, or moved to iCloud with an active MobileMe account before August 1, 2012, you have both @me.com and @icloud.com email addresses.
• If you had a working @mac.com email address as of July 9, 2008, kept your MobileMe account active, and moved to iCloud before August 1, 2012, you can use @icloud.com, @me.com, and @mac.com email addresses with your iCloud account.

In each case, you can sign in to iCloud with either your @icloud.com email address or the Apple ID that you use with your iCloud account.

If you created one or more email aliases for your account, be aware of the following:

• You can change or delete an email alias, but if you delete an @mac.com or @me.com email alias, you can't add it back to your iCloud account.
• You can't sign in to iCloud.com with an email alias. Sign in with your @icloud.com email address or the Apple ID that you use with your iCloud account.

Let’s face it, having a paid website with a custom domain name (URL) gives a lot more credibility to your brand than a free website.

Free Mac Email Address

A website called example.com sounds a lot better than a website called example.wordpress.com or example.blogspot.com. Both of these “subdomains” indicate that the website is hosted for free by those platforms, which usually means that your business is not serious.

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It’s really no different with email addresses. Mostly I see website owners having custom email addresses that belong to them fully, such as support@example.com or info@gedground.com, which is the case with my blog.

However, I also sometimes find websites that do not have their own email address. Instead, they use something like example@gmail.com or gedground@hotmail.com.

These two non-custom email addresses also take away from credibility. It is as if their owners either don’t know how to create a custom domain email address, or they aren’t bothered. Both options send a negative signal to their potential clients and partners.

How to create a domain email address for free

No more theory. Let’s get into what you actually came here for, which is how to create a domain email address for free.

And by the way, “free” means here a custom (i.e. support@example.com) email address. It means that you have already paid for a hosting provider and a custom domain name, and you now want a free custom email address linked to your website without paying extra.

Most hosting providers offer a free custom email address. All you need to know is how to set it up.

I will be using Bluehost to demonstrate the setup. It’s the provider I use. The setup with other providers is pretty much the same, you just need to know where to look.

After we have created your email address, I will show you how you can link it directly to your Mac’s Mail application (or iOS).

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Step 1. – Hosting provider’s dashboard and the email section

As I already mentioned, many hosting providers offer a domain name and a custom email address for free.

For Bluehost, click here.

Then click the Login button at the top bar of the website. You will then be asked to enter your username and password. Do it for the Hosting Login tab as shown in the image below.

If you have setup up two-factor authentication, you will be asked to enter the token. If not, you will be inside of your Bluehost dashboard.

Then click on the Advanced tab.

Then locate EMAIL and click Email Accounts.

Step 2. – Creating your Bluehost email account

Click on the +CREATE button.

Now you will find yourself in the CREATE AN EMAIL ACCOUNT section. This is where you fill in the basic data.

In this example, I will use support@gedground.com as the username. You pick whatever you want. Typically at first, you would go for support@example.com or info@example.com. You can also create a firstname.lastname@example.com email if there are two or more people in your business.

The password section holds the password for that specific email. You will need it later as well when you connect this email to your Mac.

For storage, set it to 100MB if you are on the BASIC plan. More than 100MB comes with an extra fee on Bluehost.

I also pick the Automatically Create Folders option for simplicity.

Click on the +CREATE button and don’t leave the next page.

Congratulations! You’ve created your own custom domain email address. 😊

Now that you know how to create a domain email address for free, let’s proceed with connecting it to your Mac so that you could access all of your business/blog emails directly from the default Mail app.

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Email Programs For Mac

How to connect your domain email address to your Mac

Step 1. – Download the settings file

There are certain settings that you would need to enter into your Mac’s Mail app in order for everything to work. You could do this manually, of course, but I have noticed that things don’t always go smoothly that way.

So let’s take the easier route and download the settings file.

Click on the CONNECT DEVICES option.

Click on the IMAP over SSL/TLS option.

Click on Proceed.

Your browser will now download a file called “support@gedground.com Secure Email Setup.mobileconfig” (obviously your file will be using your domain name). If your computer doesn’t run the file automatically, locate that file and run it yourself.

Step 2. – Linking the Apple Mail app with your new custom email address

Your Mac should now ask you if you want to install the support@gedground.com Secure Email Setup.

Click Continue.

At this point, your Mac will ask you for the password that you created for your new email address at the beginning of this tutorial.

Type in that password and click Install.

You will now see a message in green saying Verified. If so, yaaaaaaaaay! Congratulations again.

As already mentioned, the process is the same for other Apple devices. Download the setting file and run it on your iPhone/iPad.

Free Mail App For Mac

Now, to finalize your success, try emailing your new email address and see if you receive the message on your Mac. If you do, enjoy!

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So this was it for today. You learned how to create a domain email address for free and how to link that email address to your Apple devices, to the Mail app.

If you have any questions for me concerning the process of creating a free domain email address, just let me know in the comment section below.

Also, if there are any other tutorials you want me to do of a similar kind related to WordPress or blogging, just let me know. I appreciate your feedback 🙂

Thank you for stopping by and good luck!

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