Custom domain email Live ID with forwarding (no mailbox) and Hotmail/Live to Custom domain email workaround – Email and Windows Live with bappoo.org at SelectiveApathy…

Ok this is actually a really long story which I could split into separate posts but because of a blogs reverse chronology it would be all over the place. My actual answer is to use Gmail to accomplish all of the above and more.

This was originally a bappoo.org query and I will answer this as such so if you are here looking specifically to have all your emails in one mailbox while being able to use a custom domain email address which is not a Live Spaces address, your answer is also in the body of this post.

Simply with bappoo.org I am offering custom email forwarding to a current mailbox with yourname@bappoo.org and also sub domain URL forwarding with yourname.bappoo.org.

I failed to take into account that the bappoo family in Mauritius, for whom this idea was for, mostly use Windows Live/ Messenger/ Hotmail etc.

To make all of this possible, the way I thought of doing this is having a Google mail Address and Mailbox, which will thereafter be used as your sole universal mailbox, which will receive the email from all of your accounts – the bapppoo.org one(s), the Live/Hotmail one(s) and others.

I can already hear the screams of why do we need to sign up for a Google mail account, what is wrong with using our Live/Hotmail box.

Well I went through the whole process with a certain impatient Mr A. Bappoo, yesterday using his Live/Hotmail account with a custom bappoo.org email address only to find out in the end that we couldn’t use his bappoo.org mail address with his Live/Hotmail account. This meant that while he could receive email from his bappoo.org email to his Live/Hotmail box, he couldn’t send emails from his Live/Hotmail box as his bappoo.org email. This was because to add the bappoo.org account to his Live/Hotmail account, the bappoo.org email is requires to have a a POP3 mailbox as shown below and since bappoo.org is simply email forwarding, there is no mailbox. I am not going to detail how to add an email address in Live/Hotmail as I know it does not work with the bappoo.org email with email forwarding and no POP3.

Of course it is not necessary to do this via Google mail and I will show the steps with Live/Hotmail at the end of this guide, but be warned while you will be able to receive emails form your custom bappoo.org email address you will not be able to send them as yourname@bappoo.org but as your Live/Hotmail address and as Mr A.Bappoo put it this is “gaspillage” – pointless/useless.

However it is possible to both send and receive from your custom email address for example the bappoo.org email in Google mail as to set this up with Google mail, is through an email verification process where you are sent an email with a verification code or link.

Also it is possible to receive emails from your Live/Hotmail account to your Googlemaill box without forwarding, which means you can also keep your Live/Hotmail address/box but use Google mail as a sole central mailbox.

Yes I know I could move all email hosting for bappoo.org to Google mail via Googleapps but that would mean moving the DNS and I don’t think Googleapps includes subdomain redirection. Also some may want to keep their old mailbox and simply use email forwarding. Also I do not actually want to administrate the mailboxes this way.

This is because recently (13th March 2009), Live/Hotmail had finalised POP3 access to your Hotmail/Live mailbox. I was completely unaware of this and only found out because I was looking if it would be possible to add my Live/Hotmail account to my Google mail one:

See here for Live/Hotmail POP3 settings or the screenshot below. When adding the Hotmail account to Google mail, the settings are automatically detected.

Therefore the first step is to sign up for a Google mail Account.

Sign up for a Google mail Account

Navigate to www.googlemail.com or www.gmail.com – we will refer to Google mail as Gmail hereafter.

You will be presented with the following screen:

Click on the Create an account button on the bottom right corner and you will be taken to the following screen:

You will then be presented with the following screen:

Click the Show me my account button in the top right and you will be taken straight to your mailbox:

Adding your Live/Hotmail account to Gmail

You can now add your Live/Hotmail account to your Gmail one.

This is not necessary if you want to keep the two separate but I don’t think that’s a good idea, it is annoying to have to sign in to multiple mailboxes to check them and also easy to forget to do so.

To add your Live/Hotmail account to your Gmail one, first click on Settings in the top right corner:

In Settings click on the Accounts and Imports Tab. Under the Check mail using POP3 section, click the Add POP3 email account as shown below. We are not using the Import mail and contacts options because that will only import your mail once.

You will be presented with the following screen where you input your Live/Hotmail address and click the Next step button:

You are then taken to the following screen:

Type in your Live/Hotmail Username (email) and password and click Add Account. Notice that the POP Server and Port are  already filled in for you. You can also choose form the additional Tick Box options, these are fairly self explanatory.

If your Username and password are correct you will have added the account and Gmail will begin to fetch the emails from your Live/Hotmail account.

You can leave your Gmail box open as we will be using it later on.

Now we will look at email and Windows live with bappoo.org.

Email and Windows Live with bappoo.org

My first query regarding bappoo.org was using the bappoo.org email address with Windows Messenger and therefore with as a Windows Live ID.

The screen shot below depicts in my DNS control panel what I am doing with email at bappoo.org.

We want the Forwarded To box to contain the Gmail address you have just created above to solve the Send from custom domain email address / send from bappoo.org email address problem, but of course can be to any valid email address.

This is simply email forwarding, which means that the yourname@bappoo.org email address has no mailbox hosted anywhere, the email is simply forwarded to your current email address/box.

Of course I did not think about the fact that most of the bappoo family using email in the first place use Windows Live/Hotmail and would also like to use their bappoo.org email address with Windows Live/MSN Messenger.

This is fairly easy to do but this also requires receiving an email to your mailbox to confirm the address. However the bappoo.org and most would like to have their emails forwarded to a Live/Hotmail address anyway which can already be used for Messenger. That is not a problem and I will cover this later on, but of course the problem with not being able to use your bappoo.org address to send emails would still be there.

Thus for this section, the bappoo.org emails are being forwarded to the Gmail account we have created above. Therefore when requesting a bappoo.org email it is best to have a Gmail address/box to forward the emails to. If you would rather keep your Live/Hotmail inbox see the later section, but of course the problem with not being able to use your bappoo.org address to send emails would still be there.

Get a Windows Live ID with your custom email address

This section will show you how to use your bappoo.org with Messenger as a Windows Live ID.

Firstly you must register your bappoo.org email address as a Windows Live ID. This was formerly called .net Passport and is achieved at http://www.passport.net/.

You will be presented with a site as below:

Scroll down to the Use an e-mail address you already have part in the Sign up today section as shown below and click Get started now.

You will be taken to the Create Credentials page as depicted below:

Fill in your bappoo.org email address in the E-mail address box as above, choose a password, security question and input the ‘human’ security verification picture code and click continue.

You will now be presented with the Review and sign the Agreements screen as below. Enter your bappoo.org email address in the box and click I accept, after reading the agreements, although I don’t think anybody really reads these.

You should now be presented with a screen as below, confirming your sign up process.

Now sign into your the Google mail account we had created or if you preferred not to follow that step, sign into your current Live/Hotmail inbox, or the your current mail address you have to which you have requested your email addresses be forwarded to. You will notice than mine are being forwarded to my Gmail account as recommended, so we sign into the Google mail account. You should have received an email requesting confirmation of the account.

If you have not received this email, you will need to sign into your account at www.account.live.com with your bappoo.org email address as shown here:

You will be presented with the following screen which will inform you your email address has not been verified. Click on the link to Verify your e-mail address.

Once you have clicked on the Verify your e-mail address link, you will see the following screen with a Send e-mail button at the bottom as follows:

Click the Send e-mail button and this should resend the confirmation email.

I am only adding this step to the guide as I did not receive the confirmation email straight away.

After you have pressed the send email button you will see:

See here for more help.

Note that it may actually take some time to receive the confirmation email as in my case, although this is unusual.

The confirmation email is depicted below inside Gmail:

Open the email and you will be presented with a generic email as follows:

Follow the instructions by copying the address and pasting it into your browser.

You will then be taken to a Windows Live account sign in page as follows:

Sign in with the bappoo.org email and password you have just registered for Windows Live ID and you will be presented with the following email verification message:

Now your bappoo.org address has been verified as a Windows Live ID and you can use it for Messenger etc.

You can also link in with your current or other Live/Hotmail Accounts but if you are using Gmail as your sole/main mailbox, this is not necessary. However we will cover it later on in the section where Gmail is not used.

Using your custom domain email to SEND emails in Google mail

The main reason we are using a Gmail account is because it allows you to use your custom domain email, i.e. yourname@bappoo.org which is simply email forwarding by only completing simple steps and using a verification email. Whereas Live/Hotmail requires your custom domain email to have a POP3 mailbox in the first place which defeats the purpose of email forwarding with no mailbox.

This section will show you how to add your custom domain email address i.e. your bappoo.org address to your Gmail account.

Again as in the Adding your Live/Hotmail Account to Gmail section, click Settings inside Gmail and then click on the Accounts and Import Tab as below:

This time, in the Send mail as: section click on the Send mail from another address button. You will be presented with the screen below, input your name and your custom domain bappoo.org email address as shown and click Next Step:

You are now presented with a screen as below, informing you that a verification is required by sending a verification email. Click the Send Verification button.

You will be then presented with the following screen, asking you to click the link in the verification email or input the verification code. It is up to you which step you take. Here I will be inputting the verification code, so I leave the Verification Window open. If you do close the window you can go back into Accounts and Import and click the Verify link next to the email address you are verifying in the send email as section.

Because at my end I have set up the email forwarding from your bappoo.org / custom domain email to go to the Gmail address we had created in the first step, this confirmation email can be simply found in your Gmail inbox:

Open the email and copy the verification code or click on the confirmation link:

Or go to the Verification Window and input the confirmation code and click the Verify button:

This will verify the email address and you will be able to see the address in the Accounts and Imports tab in Gmail:

To always Send mail as yourname@bappoo.org, click on the make default link to the right of the screen.

You can also choose which email address your mail is being sent from when you are composing an email:

What we have achieved here is setting up your bappoo.org email address as a Windows Live ID to use with Messenger and other Live services. We have also set up a Gmail mail box to use as a central mailbox for the Live/Hotmail account you may already have. Finally we have set up our Google mail to be able to send emails as your bappoo.org email/ custom domain email which is not possible in Live/Hotmail for an email which has no POP3 Mailbox and is simply setup for email forwarding.

If you would still rather not use Gmail and forgo the ability to send emails from the custom email address/ bappoo.org email address but still use your the custom domain email/ bappoo.org email with Live services such as Messenger while keeping your Live/Hotmail box, please see the next section:

Using your custom domain email address with Live services while email is being forwarded to current Live/Hotmail Address

If you would like to keep your Live/Hotmail box, this section will show you how to still be able to use Live Services with your custom domain address/bappoo.org address.

Again I stress that it is not possible, at the time of this posting, to send emails as your custom domain address/bappoo.org address via Live/Hotmail as it is not possible to add an email account to Live/Hotmail, which does not have a POP3 mailbox, as in our case where email forwarding is being used.

When you request a bappoo.org email address, the email address you will be providing for your emails to be forwarded to in this case is your Live/Hotmail one.

Firstly follow the instructions in the Get a Windows Live ID with your custom email address section.

As your custom emails/ bappoo.org email is being forwarded to your Live/Hotmail address, you will receive the confirmation email there as shown below:

Open the email and unblock it to show the links if necessary. The email is shown below:

Copy the address and paste it into your browser.

You would then expect to be taken to a Windows Live account sign in page as the above guide for your registered Live ID, but you are actually already signed in to your current account! But that is OK and we can work around this.

When you enter the link into your browser, you are taken to the following screen:

If you sign in with your normal account as shown above – my hotmail account, you would get an error page as below:

Instead you have to click on Sign in with a different account and input your custom email/bappoo.org email address:

Once you sign in you will be presented with the email verified screen as below:

Click OK and you will be taken to your account page.

Actually when I followed this process yesterday, I was presented with a different error page than above which was more confusing to get round.

Now that you are signed in to Live Services with your custom email/bappoo.org email, you can try clicking through to Mail.

You will however be presented with the following screen, informing you that you have no inbox:

Here you have two options:

1. You can simply keep your other Live/Hotmail mailbox/address and associate your custom/bappoo.org Live ID to your other ID. This means your custom email/bappoo.org emails are still being forwarded to your other Live inbox but you can sign in with your custom/bappoo.org email and switch easily to your other mailbox.
2. You can create a new mailbox which will have a new Live/Hotmail address of its own but which will inherently be associated with your custom email/bappoo.org email and then forward emails from your other Live/Hotmail address to this one.

I will try to cover both options here:

1. Associate your new ID with your old one

Click on the arrow to the right of the screen next to your email address and select Link to other accounts:

You are then presented with the following screen:

Click on Link an existing Windows Live ID at the bottom of the page and you will be taken to:

You will be required to input the password for your current account i.e. your custom/bappoo.org one, and also the other account/password you would like to link with.

If all is correct, Click Link you will be taken to a confirmation page, asking you to enter or confirm the information you are providing:

Fill these in if necessary ad click Save.

If all is ok you will be taken to a screen confirming the account/ID you have linked.

Now you can sign in to Hotmail with your custom/bappoo.org email and you will still be taken to the page saying you have no inbox. Now however you can quickly switch to your other account by using the arrow next to your address/picture and you will be taken to your other mailbox:

Clicking on the appropriate account will take you to it’s mailbox.

2. Create a new mailbox and forward other emails to it

At the screen informing you that You don’t have an inbox…yet, click on the Sign up fro Windows Live Hotmail. You will then be taken to the Hotmail sign up process as shown next. Follow the sign up process and create a new email address/box:

Once you have created a new inbox, sign out and sign back into Hotmail with your old/other account.

To the right in your inbox, click on Options and select More options:

On the next screen select Forward mail to another e-mail account:

Click the Forward mail to another e-mail account bubble and in the box, enter the email address you have just signed up for, then click save.

You may be asking why could we not just have forwarded to your custom email/bappoo.org email? Well because:

Finally you have to let me know your new mailbox address so I can change the mail settings at my end so that emails sent to your bappoo.org address are forwarded to your new mailbox.

However that is not necessary as they would be forwarded to your old/other mailbox, which we have just set up to forward to your new mailbox.

What we have done here is to create your Live ID with a custom domain address which is linked to a new mailbox, which is receiving emails from your old/other address such that you do not have to bother to inform all your old contacts of a change of address.

However when you send emails they will perceive this anyway..

That is it for this post. I still prefer the Gmail method and I am now using Gmail for all my email addresses.

Any questions, please leave a comment or get in touch.