Your first thirty minutes

The short version of everything: what to do first, second and third when you have just signed up and would like your email working today.

Each step links to the guide that covers it properly. Follow it in order — every step depends on the one before.

Four things have to happen, and only in this order.

1. Your domain is added and verified. Until this is done nothing else can work, because the internet does not yet know Mailyte handles your mail.
2. Mailboxes are created on that domain, one per person.
3. Existing mail is migrated, if you are moving from somewhere else.
4. Sending is set up for anything that is not a person — your website, your invoicing system.

The slow part is not the work; it is waiting for DNS records to spread, which usually takes minutes and occasionally an hour. Start with step one and do the rest while it settles.

1. Add your domain. Go to Domains, press Add Domain, and copy the four records it gives you into your DNS host. Full detail: Setting up your domain.
2. Press Verify, and carry on while the records spread. The domain becomes Active when all four are found.
3. Create your mailboxes. One per person, with a sensible storage quota — Creating mailboxes.
4. Send a test. From one new mailbox to an outside address, and back again. This proves both directions before anyone depends on it.
5. Migrate the old mail, if you are coming from Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or another provider — Migrating mail in. Run it now and again at cutover.
6. Set up application sending if anything other than a person sends mail — Senders and SMTP credentials.
7. Check deliverability once mail is flowing — Deliverability. Fix anything critical while your volume is still small.
8. Invite your colleagues to the dashboard if others will administer it — Team and roles.

The domain will not verify. This is the commonest first hurdle, and it is nearly always a record that did not save at the DNS host, or one saved with the domain name doubled up. See the troubleshooting in Setting up your domain.

Mail sent to the new mailbox bounces. The MX record is not in place yet. That is the record that tells the world where to deliver.

You are stuck and would rather ask a person. Open a ticket. Getting a first setup right is worth someone's time, and it is quicker than a long afternoon.

You are migrating and worried about a gap. There is no gap: your old system keeps receiving until you change the MX record. Migrate first, cut over second.

• Setting up your domain — step one, and the one that matters
• DNS without the jargon — if the records mean nothing to you
• Creating mailboxes — step two