More than four billion in the world have at least one email address. Many people rely on their emails to manage both personal and professional affairs. However, with an emphasis on compartmentalization of communication, most professionals have multiple email accounts to address the diverse needs of their daily operations.

Keeping track of multiple email addresses for each domain can become challenging if you deal with a high volume of emails every day. Toggling back and forth between different email accounts can also result in a loss of productivity. However, managing multiple accounts can be made simpler by forwarding emails from various domains to a single email address. With Cloudflare email, this process can be made easy. 

Explore Cloudflare email hosting and routing service to streamline your communication. Are you wondering how to go about using Cloudflare’s email solution? This comprehensive guide explains how to set up a free custom domain email account to send and receive professional communication and enable email forwarding using the Cloudflare email server. Continue reading to learn more!

Emergence of Cloudflare Email Route

Over 300 billion emails are sent and received daily, so referring to it as merely a communication tool would be an understatement. Its impact on our lives extends well beyond its use as a message delivery system. Among its many use cases are those of an online identity validation tool and an interface to other communication channels. However, some challenges make email management a difficult task, such as:

• Professionals have to manage their work and other personal email accounts for various forms of communication. 
• Emails are used to authenticate your identity for various purposes, some important ones like creating a bank account or governmental purposes, as well as other unimportant tasks like signing up for a website. This leads to your email being buried in spam, potentially leading to you missing out on important communication. 
• If you delete your Gmail account or other email accounts to migrate to a different email provider, you may lose your important emails or have to import a large amount of unnecessary data. 

Cloudflare Email Routing was created to address all these challenges and more. It simplifies creating and managing multiple email addresses from a single account, eliminating the need to monitor additional mailboxes. 

The steps are easy to follow. To get started, you only need to create a custom domain for your email address and forward all your important emails to that account, allowing you to archive and categorize the emails. The following are the benefits of Cloudflare Email Server:

1. Private And Anti-spam

A Cloudflare email server is completely private. It does not store your emails or allow unauthorized access to your email content. Cloudflare also provides industry-grade encryption with anti-phishing detection.

2. Easy And Free

Create a custom email address to forward important emails without any charge. Moreover, DNS records are generated automatically and protected against accidental modifications.

3. Advanced Analytics

With Cloudflare email hosting, get information about how many emails were sent to you, whether they were dropped or forwarded, and whether they arrived at your mailbox successfully. These analytics will help you manage your communication better.

4. Robust Email Processing

Route your emails to Cloudflare Workers, who will program custom logic to process them and automate the process. Additionally, you can create email routing rules with filters and custom workflows to enhance the processing power of the Cloudflare email server. 

How Cloudflare Email Routing Works

Email routing refers to the process through which an email is sent to its intended address. The Cloudflare email hosting service handles and modifies the SMTP envelope, the outgoing email protocol, to deliver the message to its destination while maintaining the original headers and body intact. It functions as an intelligent router at the transport layer. This method guarantees the recipient's protection and the continued functionality of security or anti-spam and anti-spoofing protocols such as SPF and Domain Keys Identification Method.

Additionally, unlike other email providers, the Cloudflare email service does not look into, queue, or save emails at any time, prioritizing your communication. Messages are received, processed in real-time based on the set rules, and sent to their destined locations. To achieve this, you have to complete several steps.

1. Email forwarding is currently being tested in private beta. You can use the sign-up form to save a spot.
2. All you have to do is begin using email routing by adding your domain name to the Cloudflare DNS.
3. If you don't already have a domain, you can purchase one from their domain registrar or another registrar like GoDaddy, Squarespace, or Namecheap. 

Steps to Create and Setup Email Forwarding 

You can easily create a domain email address with just a few simple steps using Cloudflare Email Routing. For security and privacy concerns, all forwarded emails will also be sent straight to your personal mailbox rather than being kept on the Cloudflare email servers. After that, setting up forwarding and generating a new email address only takes a few steps:

1. Go to the official Cloudflare website and click on Sign up. 

2. Choose the plan that is the most convenient for you and register your account. 
3. Navigate to the Cloudflare dashboard's email page.
4. Select Email Routing from the drop-down menu.

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5. Review your MX and DNS records and then click on the Add Records and Enable button. 
6. Enter the desired email address (you can choose anything you want, as this is for your domain). You can also use a catch-all feature to ensure that each email address in your domain name is valid and forwarded.

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7. Select Create and Continue. 
8. Confirm that the destination email address belongs to you. 
9. Once the Status option on the Destination Verification page shows Verified, click on the Continue option.
10. If you haven't set up email for your domain, the DNS configuration step is done automatically. If not, they offer clear instructions on how to set it up to suit your needs. 
11. Once you are done configuring your records, click Finished.

Alternatives of Cloudflare Email Route

While Cloudflare email routing services offer a myriad of benefits, it’s still in its beta testing stage and might not provide all the functionalities you are looking for. Therefore, it's necessary to look for a suitable alternative to help you make the right choice for your business requirements. Here are the top alternatives to Cloudflare email forwarding and hosting. 

1. Neo

Neo is a professional email hosting provider and a multifunctional platform tailored for small businesses. The platform offers all-inclusive solutions with its hosting plans, including a free one-page website, email newsletters, and email forwarding. Moreover, Neo also supports multi-device and provides multi-platform access by integrating with diverse email services such as Google Workspace, Outlook, and more.

You can set up email forwarding to automatically forward incoming emails to your Neo account or up to three external email addresses. Neo's seamless integration and multi-device support allow you to forward emails to Neo or configure them from other email providers. This allows you to store all your emails in one convenient location to access and manage. 

2. Mailgun

Mailgun is a transactional email service provider that can also set up routing and forwarding rules for your emails that are easy to set up. With Mailgun, you can effectively send marketing messages to the correct audience and boost your conversion rates by eliminating fake and unreliable email addresses through your email lists. 

Furthermore, registering on the site is as easy as activating your account and adding a couple of DNS records. After that, you can send and forward emails using templates and receive data regarding email performance insights. Mail Gun offers a free month trial service to help you determine whether it is the right choice for you before committing to its paid plans.

3. Gmail

Google's free email forwarding service, Gmail, has billions of active users worldwide, making it one of the most popular email providers. It offers a user-friendly interface with robust security and easy-to-use features. 

It's easy to forward emails from your Gmail account. Sending emails to several email accounts at once is not possible with Gmail; instead, you must set up an email forwarding group. On the other hand, you can configure an automated forwarding service to forward specific emails to a designated email address. Before forwarding emails, Gmail checks the destination account, as it respects privacy. This prevents your emails and personal information from being accessed by third parties.

4. Namecheap

Namecheap is more than just a domain registration platform. It also offers business email and email forwarding facilities. You can create multiple email aliases using Namecheap for each of your business’s functions and route them all back to one platform for easy management and email categorization. Additionally, you can stay reassured with NameCheap’s powerful security features, such as two-factor authentication and anti-spam protection. 

5. Forward Email

Forward Email is an open-source platform that is considered one of the most affordable email forwarding services, with just $3 per month plan. It does not keep any email addresses or chat logs, and it aims to give online security to developers, creators, and businesses.

In addition to helping you avoid spam and phishing emails, Forward Emails allows you to create an infinite number of disposable email addresses that forward emails to the account of your choice, giving you greater privacy. Additionally, you can use your regular inbox to send messages as an alias.

Comparison Table

Each platform provides a suitable option to help you manage your inbox. Let’s compare them to help you choose the best email forwarding service. Our rating is based on each provider’s features, use cases, flexibility, and pricing. 

Provider

Our Ratings 

Our Reviews 

Top Features 

Cloudflare 

4.5

Cloudflare email routing service provides a secure email forwarding infrastructure without any cost.  

Email Routing Service, Add Custom Addresses, Offer DNS, and Email Analytics

Neo

4.8

Neo is an email provider that targets small enterprises, startups, and entrepreneurs. It offers a wide feature set, including email forwarding. 

Custom Domain, AI-powered Email Writing Assistant, Email Campaigns, and Free One-page website

Mailgun

4.7

Mailgun offers a dependable and developer-friendly email delivery solution. It is simple to set up email routing and integrate the platform with your current systems.

Email API, Deliverability Services, Inbox Ready, Email Verification, Mailjet Email Marketing, Inbox Placement, and

Email Analytics

Gmail

4.7

With Gmail, messages can be automatically forwarded to a different address of your choice. You can also choose to forward all incoming messages or only some of them.

Send confidential emails, Compatible with desktop and mobile phones, Automatic mail forwarding, and Free of cost

Namecheap

4.4

Namecheap helps you to create customized email addresses for a domain and forward communications to other email addresses.

Free Domain And Hosting, Great Customer Support Team, Free Email Forwarding, and Create Customizations 

Forward Email

4.6

Forward Email is the quickest, encrypted, and most affordable email service. It offers limitless domain and alias support at no additional cost.

Users’ privacy is a priority, Disposable addresses, Multiple recipients and wildcards, and “Send mail as” with Gmail

Final thoughts

Cloudflare Email Server functions as an intelligent router at the transport layer, ensuring that SPF, DKIM, and various other security or anti-spam methods stay in place. It enables users of Cloudflare to configure personalized email addresses for their domains. Messages are received, processed by the rules that have been configured, and sent to their intended recipient. However, Cloudflare email certainly depends on third parties and has less control.

Neo is the greatest option for searching for a Cloudflare email alternative. It is a business email provider that offers a polished email address for business purposes. Email forwarding, a personalized email address, and other strong features help small businesses build their brands on this robust platform. So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for Neo and enjoy a free trial today! 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) 

Q1. What is the Cloudflare email routing limit in terms of size?

Currently, Cloudflare email routing service does not support messages larger than 25 MiB.

Q2. Does email forwarding come with Cloudflare?

Cloudflare only offers forwarding; mailboxes are not provided. Emails can be forwarded to a specified email address by configuring mail forwarding after setting up your domain on Cloudflare. However, you will still require a mail provider since Cloudflare does not offer mail forwarding.

Q3. How many domain names can I use with Cloudflare?

There are no clear total numbers of domains you can use. However, there is a limit to the number of pending domains you can have, so you must fully activate them as you add them.