One of the features that arrived with iOS 15 in 2021 was Custom Email Domains. This allows iCloud+ subscribers to add their own personal or business domain names to iCloud Mail. Then, iCloud handles incoming and outgoing email for them. With iOS 16, Apple appears to be expanding that offering. There’s now an option for buying custom email domain within iCloud settings.
Running Email for YourDomain.com Through iCloud
This new feature to iOS 15 maybe didn’t get as much attention as it deserved, although we did offer in-depth coverage of it when it launched. It basically takes a process that used to require at least a modicum of technical knowledge and makes it easy for anybody. By following a few simple instructions, you could register your own custom domain name and then Apple’s iCloud servers would handle all of the incoming and outgoing email for you.
The trick here, though, is you still need to purchase that domain name and set it up to point to Apple’s iCloud servers. While Apple has done a great job outlining how to do that with the most popular domain management systems, it’s impossible to cover them all. There are simply too many, and each has its own idiosyncrasies for configuration.
Searching For and Buying Your Custom Email Domain Within Settings
In the first iOS 16 beta, Apple added a user interface within settings to handle buying your custom email domain. It has partnered with Cloudflare, and handles all aspects of the domain registration within the Settings app.
While I’ve yet to walk through the entire process from start to finish, the prompts indicate that once you finish buying your custom email domain, iOS 16 will set everything up for you. That should definitely make it easier for folks to take advantage of the feature.
It’s important to note this is found within the very first beta of iOS 16. It’s possible this feature could be pulled by the time iOS 16 releases to the public in fall 2022.
The use of custom email domains is a perk of being an iCloud+ subscriber. The entry point for that is pretty low, since even the least-expensive iCloud storage upgrade ($0.99 per month) qualifies.