IMPORTANT: As of January 2018, Zoho no longer offers email forwarding and POP/IMAP as part of it’s free webmail service. Unless you have a Zoho paid account, you will not be able to use the POP/IMAP features that are required in order to complete this tutorial. On behalf of Zoho, we apologize for any inconvenience.
When running websites on Google Cloud Platform, it’s important to have a custom email address for your domain name.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the Zoho mail client to manage custom email accounts for your Google Cloud Platform websites.
Having custom email addresses is a great way to improve the professional appearance of your website.
This is part one of a two-part tutorial on how to configure domain name email using Zoho and Gmail, as an alternative to Google’s G Suite email service. View part two of this tutorial here.
Before getting started with this tutorial, you should have already configured a domain name for your website on Google Cloud Platform.
Why use custom email addresses?
There are many reasons why it’s important to have domain-name specific email addresses for you website.
If you’re running an online business, customers expect that domain-name specific email addresses will be used by your organization’s staff, as this reflects a certain level of professionalism.
Additionally, having domain-name specific email addresses for your websites administrators implies greater credibility. For example:
Are you wondering about hosting a mail server on your instance? This is indeed possible, but it’s likely more work than it’s worth, and you’ll end up paying more in hosting fees compared with using a dedicated email service such as Zoho or Gmail.
Hope this helps and let me know if you have other questions,
Joe
Jhonathansays
Hi Leron,
Thank you for your answer it has been very useful
I have another question and it is if I use a g suite account to have my email with a custom domain, would there be limitations or problems in the amount of email that can be sent from wordpress using smtp?
The limits are specific to Google Cloud and the arbitrary limits they impose on sending mail from instances, and is not dependent the mail service provider you’re using (e.g. Gsuite, Zoho, Outlook).
Google (and any other cloud provider, for that matter), will always impose limits on the number of emails that are sent from it’s servers in an effort to prevent spam. From my experience, the limits are generally imposed when you’re trying to send large volumes of emails at the same time (e.g. sending an email to 200+ subscribers all at once). If this happens, they’ll typically throttle the number of outbound emails allowed for a period of time, before resuming the mail service.
Hope this helps and let me know if you have other questions,
Joe
Can you please provide specific details as to why it’s not working? This will help me to update the tutorial accordingly.
Thanks,
Joe
Anthonysays
Hi Leron, Thanks for the great tutorials! They’ve been so helpful. Just on the topic of emails with Zoho, shame they started charging for their services, but it’s still cheaper than G suite and buying shared hosting. Nonetheless, I only seem to be able to have one user for my paid standard Zoho account and it seems they charge $2 (USD) per extra user per month. I’ve subscribed to yearly so it ends up being a fair bit. Their free account apparently offers up to 25 users but not multiple domains.
I basically need a cheap (or free) solution to host my email with multiple addresses and domains. Would you know of any?
Many thanks!
Unfortunately, the use case that you described – having email with multiple addresses and domains – is not likely to be a solution that you will be able to find for free.
If you end up finding a solution, please let me know, as I’d be interested to learn more about it.
Thanks and talk to you soon,
Joe
Anthonysays
Hi Joe,
Thanks for getting back to me. I’ve contacted Zoho support to see if it’s possible on the paid account but no reply so far.
I’ve been using a shared hosting plan to host emails but the plan is coming to an end soon. Went with Zoho based on your tutorial so even if they charge and i can get multiple addresses on multiple domains on their standard plan, it will still be cheaper than shared hosting.
I’m glad you reached out to Zoho, and I’m curious to know what they say. Please keep me posted!
Talk to you soon,
Joe
Anggasays
Hi Anthony,
You can use service from mxroute.com email hosting with multiple domain and multiple users account starting from US $5 / month for 20GB total ssd space.
Hemantsays
Hi Leron !
How are you?
I have a question regarding server response time of a website
how to set load time and finish time of a website on server?
my site load time and finish time is same…
share with me if you have any solution… š
You’re simply routing your mail through Gmail’s servers – it doesn’t mean that you have to send mail from your Gmail address.
What you need to do is add your website’s email to Gmail, then set it as the default email address. I go through this process starting with step 2 of this tutorial.
Hope this helps,
Joe
Hsays
Well I did that, and here’s what I received in the end-
Add another email address you own
Confirm verification and add your email address
Congratulations, we successfully located your other server and verified your credentials. Just one more step!
An email with a confirmation code was sent to [email protected]. [Resend email]
To add your email address, do one of the following:
Click on the link in the confirmation email |
OR
| Enter and verify the confirmation code
Hi Giri,
I don’t know how to configure Mailster, so I would try using the STMP plugin and instructions from this tutorial.
Let me know if you have any questions,
Joe
Informersays
Note: Zoho no longer offers imap nor pop access on free accounts, and they don’t inform users of this up front. So in my case, I went through this whole process only to have to undo it all and go elsewhere. Heads-up.
Hello Please me I have getting some problem
I have install deploy wordpress after that when i sending the mail i m getting the error
and i m not accessing my folders also i try to edit through appearance through edit but same problem, i m trying give permission but not access any thing i m getting this error
root@wordpress-5-vm:~# stat -c ā%a %nā /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf
stat: cannot stat ā%nāā: No such file or directory
ā644
root@wordpress-5-vm:~#
and on email on wordpress i m getting this error
There was a problem while sending a test email. Related debugging output is shown below:
Versions:
WordPress: 4.9.1
WordPress MS: No
PHP: 5.6.30-0+deb8u1
WP Mail SMTP: 1.2.1
When checking file permissions, try small sections at a time. For instance, start with stat -c ā%a %nā /etc/ then work your way up to stat -c ā%a %nā /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf, this is just necessary to ensure that the files exist in their assumed directories.
Regarding the mail issue – I am not sure what the problem is. Try pasting sections of the output in Google and see if anyone has had a similar problem that they were able to resolve.
Hi Nana,
That usually means that there is an issue with your Google Cloud DNS configuration.
You can send a picture of your Cloud DNS to [email protected] and I will take a look for any problems.
Hopefully, however, you’ve already resolved the issue.
Thanks,
Joe
zionsays
Hi
I have a question that maybe related here
I am trying to send an email from php code
like this :
Mail ($ to, $ subject, $ message, $ headers);
On my server in Bluehost it works
And it does not work on Googleclude
I installed PHP and it works great
I think the problem is in SMTP or something like that
Hi Zion,
This is an annoyance in Google Cloud, but it has to do with the fact that outbound connections are blocked on default ports 25, 465, and 587. You can work around this by configuring SMTP with a plugin – there are a bunch of them. I will do a tutorial on this at some point because it’s a problem faced by Google Cloud and GoDaddy Hosting customers.
Thanks,
Joe
ericsays
again, thank you sir! took 10 minutes (that’s include pause and propagation) to setup everything. flawless instruction.
Awesome!
I’m so glad it worked flawlessly for you!
It seems like you’re already quite comfortable with GCP?
Do you have a lot of background experience?
Talk to you soon,
Joe
Vusays
I can not send email (zoho) from my site using GCP but I can do it with Gmail. How to resolve, please?
Jhonathan says
Hello, Leron,
Thanks for the article, it has been very useful to me.
I have a query, is it possible to have email accounts from an instance? as done from a server
Leron Amin says
Hi Jhonathan,
Are you wondering about hosting a mail server on your instance? This is indeed possible, but it’s likely more work than it’s worth, and you’ll end up paying more in hosting fees compared with using a dedicated email service such as Zoho or Gmail.
Hope this helps and let me know if you have other questions,
Joe
Jhonathan says
Hi Leron,
Thank you for your answer it has been very useful
I have another question and it is if I use a g suite account to have my email with a custom domain, would there be limitations or problems in the amount of email that can be sent from wordpress using smtp?
Leron Amin says
Hi Jhonathan,
The limits are specific to Google Cloud and the arbitrary limits they impose on sending mail from instances, and is not dependent the mail service provider you’re using (e.g. Gsuite, Zoho, Outlook).
Google (and any other cloud provider, for that matter), will always impose limits on the number of emails that are sent from it’s servers in an effort to prevent spam. From my experience, the limits are generally imposed when you’re trying to send large volumes of emails at the same time (e.g. sending an email to 200+ subscribers all at once). If this happens, they’ll typically throttle the number of outbound emails allowed for a period of time, before resuming the mail service.
Hope this helps and let me know if you have other questions,
Joe
rakshit jain says
not working anymore in 2020
Leron Amin says
Hi Rakshit,
Can you please provide specific details as to why it’s not working? This will help me to update the tutorial accordingly.
Thanks,
Joe
Anthony says
Hi Leron, Thanks for the great tutorials! They’ve been so helpful. Just on the topic of emails with Zoho, shame they started charging for their services, but it’s still cheaper than G suite and buying shared hosting. Nonetheless, I only seem to be able to have one user for my paid standard Zoho account and it seems they charge $2 (USD) per extra user per month. I’ve subscribed to yearly so it ends up being a fair bit. Their free account apparently offers up to 25 users but not multiple domains.
I basically need a cheap (or free) solution to host my email with multiple addresses and domains. Would you know of any?
Many thanks!
Leron Amin says
Hi Anthony,
Thanks for the feedback!
Unfortunately, the use case that you described – having email with multiple addresses and domains – is not likely to be a solution that you will be able to find for free.
If you end up finding a solution, please let me know, as I’d be interested to learn more about it.
Thanks and talk to you soon,
Joe
Anthony says
Hi Joe,
Thanks for getting back to me. I’ve contacted Zoho support to see if it’s possible on the paid account but no reply so far.
I’ve been using a shared hosting plan to host emails but the plan is coming to an end soon. Went with Zoho based on your tutorial so even if they charge and i can get multiple addresses on multiple domains on their standard plan, it will still be cheaper than shared hosting.
Hopefully something comes up.š
Anthony
Leron Amin says
Hey Anthony,
I’m glad you reached out to Zoho, and I’m curious to know what they say. Please keep me posted!
Talk to you soon,
Joe
Angga says
Hi Anthony,
You can use service from mxroute.com email hosting with multiple domain and multiple users account starting from US $5 / month for 20GB total ssd space.
Hemant says
Hi Leron !
How are you?
I have a question regarding server response time of a website
how to set load time and finish time of a website on server?
my site load time and finish time is same…
share with me if you have any solution… š
Leron Amin says
Hey Hemant,
Optimizing your website, including server response times and load times, is not a subject I have a tutorial on.
However, I’d say that the top three most important factors that determine your website’s performance are:
I will be releasing a tutorial on CDN configuration one of these days, so stay tuned!
Talk to you soon,
Joe
H says
Hi Mr. Joe,
You told me to to reply to this page if I had any further problems regarding not receiving email. I am using WP Mail plugin, but it isn’t helping me.
I tried contacting G Cloud and their support ‘specialist’ parroted the lines from this tutorial-
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/tutorials/sending-mail/#choosing_an_email_service_to_use
I am not sure that it will help me, also the process seems tedious and alot can go wrong if I make a mistake..
Please help me
Leron Amin says
Hi H,
You don’t need to use a 3rd party client to send and receive emails from your WordPress website.
You should download the WP Mail SMTP and configure it according to the instructions outlined in this tutorial.
Hope this information helps and let me know if you have any questions,
Joe
H says
But then, I won’t be able to send emails from my site’s email([email protected])
Leron Amin says
Hi H,
You’re simply routing your mail through Gmail’s servers – it doesn’t mean that you have to send mail from your Gmail address.
What you need to do is add your website’s email to Gmail, then set it as the default email address. I go through this process starting with step 2 of this tutorial.
Hope this helps,
Joe
H says
Well I did that, and here’s what I received in the end-
Add another email address you own
Confirm verification and add your email address
Congratulations, we successfully located your other server and verified your credentials. Just one more step!
An email with a confirmation code was sent to [email protected]. [Resend email]
To add your email address, do one of the following:
Click on the link in the confirmation email |
OR
| Enter and verify the confirmation code
Any ideas?
Leron Amin says
Hi H,
Just follow those steps as instructed; you need to verify that you ‘own’ the email address before you can use it as an alias.
Hope this helps!
Joe
Hemant says
Hi! How many email I can send from zoho per day for free.
Leron Amin says
Hi Hemant,
I’m not sure what the quotas are. If you find out, let me know.
Thanks,
Joe
Giri says
Hi Leron,
I have hosted WordPress website on GCP, I configured SMTP with Mailster plugin, but I get error, and can not send mail. can you help?
Leron Amin says
Hi Giri,
I don’t know how to configure Mailster, so I would try using the STMP plugin and instructions from this tutorial.
Let me know if you have any questions,
Joe
Informer says
Note: Zoho no longer offers imap nor pop access on free accounts, and they don’t inform users of this up front. So in my case, I went through this whole process only to have to undo it all and go elsewhere. Heads-up.
Leron Amin says
Thanks for the update Informer – I put a notice at the top of the tutorial.
Is there a free alternative that you recommend?
Ashutosh Kumar says
Hi, I installed WordPress bitnami ON GCP but my website is whenever trying to send an email I am getting an error.
I tried wp SMTP plugin and many things, tried to add Zoho mail smtp also. but nothing is working.
Versions:
WordPress: 4.9.1
WordPress MS: No
PHP: 7.0.25
WP Mail SMTP: 1.2.2
Params:
Mailer: mail
Constants: No
ErrorInfo:
Host: localhost
Port: 25
SMTPSecure: string(0) “”
SMTPAutoTLS: bool(true)
SMTPAuth: bool(false)
Server:
OpenSSL: Yes
SMTP Debug:
[empty]
Leron Amin says
Hi Ashutosh,
Check out this post about configuring SMTP.
If this doesn’t work for you, let me know and I will help you out.
Talk to you soon,
Joe
Deepak Sodhi says
Hello Please me I have getting some problem
I have install deploy wordpress after that when i sending the mail i m getting the error
and i m not accessing my folders also i try to edit through appearance through edit but same problem, i m trying give permission but not access any thing i m getting this error
root@wordpress-5-vm:~# stat -c ā%a %nā /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf
stat: cannot stat ā%nāā: No such file or directory
ā644
root@wordpress-5-vm:~#
and on email on wordpress i m getting this error
There was a problem while sending a test email. Related debugging output is shown below:
Versions:
WordPress: 4.9.1
WordPress MS: No
PHP: 5.6.30-0+deb8u1
WP Mail SMTP: 1.2.1
Params:
Mailer: mail
Constants: No
Server:
PHP.mail(): Yes
Apache.mod_security: No
Please help me
Leron Amin says
Hi Deepak,
When checking file permissions, try small sections at a time. For instance, start with stat -c ā%a %nā /etc/ then work your way up to stat -c ā%a %nā /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf, this is just necessary to ensure that the files exist in their assumed directories.
Regarding the mail issue – I am not sure what the problem is. Try pasting sections of the output in Google and see if anyone has had a similar problem that they were able to resolve.
Let me know if you have any questions,
Joe
NANA says
Hi
I don’t Proceed to TXT or Cname Method Verification my Domain
What is problem?
Leron Amin says
Hi Nana,
That usually means that there is an issue with your Google Cloud DNS configuration.
You can send a picture of your Cloud DNS to [email protected] and I will take a look for any problems.
Hopefully, however, you’ve already resolved the issue.
Thanks,
Joe
zion says
Hi
I have a question that maybe related here
I am trying to send an email from php code
like this :
Mail ($ to, $ subject, $ message, $ headers);
On my server in Bluehost it works
And it does not work on Googleclude
I installed PHP and it works great
I think the problem is in SMTP or something like that
please help me
Thank you very much
Leron Amin says
Hi Zion,
This is an annoyance in Google Cloud, but it has to do with the fact that outbound connections are blocked on default ports 25, 465, and 587. You can work around this by configuring SMTP with a plugin – there are a bunch of them. I will do a tutorial on this at some point because it’s a problem faced by Google Cloud and GoDaddy Hosting customers.
Thanks,
Joe
eric says
again, thank you sir! took 10 minutes (that’s include pause and propagation) to setup everything. flawless instruction.
Leron Amin says
Awesome!
I’m so glad it worked flawlessly for you!
It seems like you’re already quite comfortable with GCP?
Do you have a lot of background experience?
Talk to you soon,
Joe
Vu says
I can not send email (zoho) from my site using GCP but I can do it with Gmail. How to resolve, please?
Leron Amin says
Hi Vu,
What do you mean “send email from my site”? Do you mean through a contact form?
Let me know!
Joe
Leron Amin says
Did this tutorial work for you?
What do you think of the Zoho email platform interface?