Connecting A Domain to Google Workspace

Managing email can be one of the harder parts of reclaiming your space on the web, and shared hosting servers are not always the best environment in which to run your email accounts. 

For this reason, many users decide to use a service like Google Workspace to run email accounts with their domain. Google Workspace allows you to have email addresses based on your domain but completely powered by Google using Gmail as a webmail interface and connecting to any Google-supported client.

Luckily it’s possible to push mail to Google while still maintaining complete control of your domain for building out content on Reclaim Hosting. This is done by editing the MX Records which are a type of record for your domain that tells our servers who is in charge of handling email for the domain.

Google Documentation

Google outlines the necessary records for setting this up in their help documentation: Set up MX records for Google Workspace.

Essentially that post describes how to edit the MX records  in your Zone Editor (cPanel > Domains > Zone Editor):

"The Google Workspace MX record value is smtp.google.com. You need to add this record into your domain settings so your domain registrar knows to send incoming mail to Google for delivery.

Legacy MX record values: If you started using Google Workspace before 2023, your domain might have different MX record values that start with "aspmx". If your email is working, no changes are required. Any account can use the new single MX record value, but the legacy MX record values are still supported."

Legacy records:

Updating Your MX Record

To update your MX record, you’ll log into cPanel and navigate to the Domains section and choose Zone Editor.

Click manage next to the domain name you're working with, and then filter the list to show your existing MX record.

1. Once you find the MX records, you might see an MX record already listed. Remove any other MX records. Your email might not work correctly if you keep old or incorrect MX records.
2. Add a new MX record, using the following values:
    

   Type	MX
   Name / Host / Alias	For Reclaim sites, leave this as your domain name. If your domain is mywpsite.com, then the Name should be: mywpsite.com. (with the period at the end).
   TTL	Use the default value, which should be 14400.
   Priority	1
   Value / Answer / Destination	smtp.google.com

3. Save your new MX record.
4. Wait for the changes to take effect. It can take up to 72 hours for the new MX records to be recognized.

You’re all done! Keep in mind changing records can take 24-48 hours to begin working, though it typically will happen much sooner. Once the records have propagated globally all emails will be routed to Google and you can use their system to handle all of your email functionality while still maintaining control of your domain from Reclaim Hosting.