Caution: Custom Domain for iCloud Email BETA

A few days ago, Apple finally silently launched in beta their custom domain support in iCloud Mail. This is a fantastic feature that fulfils one of my wishes.

However, it indeed is very much in beta and the following are notable:

• Apple’s guide to setup your custom domain.
• Short email addresses cannot be used. One must have at least 3 characters before the @yourdomain.com. Therefore, I cannot use mc@merecivilian.com. I can use mere@merecivilian.com
• Sharing with family is not working now
• DMARC is not yet implemented by Apple and therefore, the emails sent may be flagged as SPAM
• Three email addresses per domain per account can be created. A family of six can have a total of 18 email addresses for one domain. In addition, one can have 5 domains per account and/or per family.
• Appears to work in Spark email if added as alias.
• Not clear if one can use the Apple SMTP server to send email from third-party clients.

As we march towards official release, I am hoping many issues are ironed out because one does not want to bring their primary domain to iCloud and experience deliverability and/or reliability issues. Personally, the minimum 3 character limit on my personal domain is ridiculous.

I will keep this page updated because I am very much interested in hosting MereCivilian emails with iCloud Mail.

Originally published at https://merecivilian.com on August 28, 2021.