Google has put an end to its free custom domain email service a long time ago, and finally, Microsoft will also do the same thing. I’m still using the Outlook service for my personal custom email, but I think I must migrate to another service that is still free of charge.

There are many email services other than Gmail and Outlook with the same quality, one of them is Yandex.Mail.

Yandex is a Russian-based company, many people call it “the Google of Russia” because it is also a search engine founded in 1997, and it has the same services like maps, mail, translation, cloud storage, and many more. Free email with @yandex.com is available in English, but if you want to set up an email with a custom domain, it’s available only in Russian. 😀

Yandex offers 1000 email accounts with your own domain for free.

Basically, the custom domain email settings are the same on all services, but let me help you to set up your custom email on Yandex.Mail step by step.

Let’s get started!

1. Create a Yandex account

You can register an email account at http://mail.yandex.com/. It is in English, so it must be easy.

2. Sign in to Yandex domain admin

Go to https://pdd.yandex.ru/domains_add/ and sign in with your Yandex account. Tips: just write your username and password, then hit Enter!

3. Register your domain

UPDATE: Yandex has a setup page in English! Thanks to ahmedwinlin for this tip! 

Just go to https://domain.yandex.com/domains_add/ and set up your domain in minutes. 🙂 Enjoy!

Insert your domain and hit the “Подключить домен” button. It means “connect domain”.

4. Verify domain ownership

You don’t need to change the DNS server, I think the fastest way is by adding a CNAME record to your domain. There are two important values in the red boxes.

Go to the domain admin on your registrar and add the CNAME record, I’m using Namecheap for the example.

5. Setup MX record

Create an MX record from your domain admin with the following values:
Host Name: @

Server: mx.yandex.ru. (ends with dot (.))

Mail type: MX

Priority : 10

6 . Create an account on your custom email

Yup, one more step, and the setup process will be finished. Now you can create an email account with your own domain, you can create up to 1000 accounts! o/

If you don’t get any problems, just go to https://mail.yandex.com/for/yourdomain.com

Change the language with two clicks!

Use the following IMAP and SMTP config for custom email clients:

IMAP

Server: imap.yandex.com
Port: 993 with SSL enebled

SMTP

Server: smtp.yandex.com
Port: 465 with SSL enabled

Want to test your new email? Send an email to [email protected]