Custom inbound domains

Paid plans can receive inbound email using a domain that you control instead of an imitate.email address. Custom inbound domains are available for both personal and team mailboxes. This lets you test realistic recipient addresses without changing the application configuration between development, testing, and CI.

You can use a complete domain or a dedicated subdomain. Every address at a configured domain is delivered to the mailbox associated with that domain, regardless of the local part (orders@, support@, or any other value).

What this enables

Custom inbound domains are useful when you need to:

• Test signup, verification, password-reset, and notification emails with production-like addresses.
• Exercise application logic that depends on a particular recipient domain.
• Generate unique recipient addresses during automated tests while keeping the same domain.
• Route mail for different applications or environments to separate mailboxes.

Set up your domain

1. Open the settings page for the personal or team mailbox that should receive the messages. For a personal mailbox, open Settings > Personal mailbox. For a team mailbox, open the mailbox's team settings page.
2. Enter the domain or subdomain you want to use in the Custom inbound domain field and save it.
3. Add an MX record for that exact domain with your DNS provider.
4. Wait for DNS to propagate, then send an email to any address at the domain.

The MX record must point to smtp.imitate.email.

For example, for test.example.com, configure:

Some DNS providers ask for a priority. Any normal priority value is suitable when this is the only MX record for the domain. If other MX records remain, mail may be delivered to those providers instead of Imitate Email.

DNS provider instructions

The exact labels differ between DNS providers, but the process is generally:

1. Sign in to the provider that hosts the DNS records for your domain.
2. Open the DNS records or DNS management page.
3. Add a new record with type MX.
4. Set the name/host to the domain you entered in Imitate Email. For a root domain, the provider may require @; for a subdomain, enter the subdomain label.
5. Set the mail server/target/value to smtp.imitate.email and save the record.
6. Remove or adjust conflicting MX records if this domain should be handled exclusively by Imitate Email.

Do not add http://, https://, an email address, or a port number to the MX target. A trailing dot is optional; some providers display the saved value as smtp.imitate.email..

DNS changes can take from a few minutes to 48 hours to propagate, depending on the provider and the previous record's TTL. The mailbox settings page checks the MX record and reports when it can find smtp.imitate.email.

Use the domain

The local part of the address can be anything your application requires:

hello@mail.example.com
orders@mail.example.com

Use multiple mailboxes

A custom domain mapping routes every local part at that domain to one mailbox, whether it is personal or team-owned. To use custom inbound domains for multiple mailboxes, assign a different domain or subdomain to each mailbox. For example:

Create a separate MX record for each subdomain, all pointing to smtp.imitate.email. The same domain cannot be assigned to more than one mailbox. If you need separate mailboxes, use separate subdomains.

Change or remove a domain

Return to the personal or team mailbox settings page and replace the existing domain. Clear the field and save to remove the custom mapping.

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Team introduction

IMAP