The most common issue that I run into with Godaddy is their email system. For the lowest service you are only allowed to send out 250 emails a day, each email is considered a "Relay SMTP sent email". Once you go past that, well you can’t send out email again until it resets sometime in the evening. Another common issue is not being able to receive emails, and various pop3 and imap issues.

So to summarize what this article is about, it’s how to switch over to a much better email server, which is Google Apps Standard which is free to use and easy to setup, effectively getting rid of Godaddys email relay problem and various issues with email receiving problems. I promise this fix does not mess with with php email script, such as Wordpress sending out user confirmation emails.

Here is the walk through - Complete with pictures. This is very easy to do just takes a small amount of time.

Note - If you have a problem Seeing the images you can download this guide in Adobe PDF through this link.

So lets start from the beginning. Registration

1. Sign up for Google Apps Free Standard Addition - Link Updated on 5-29-09
   
2. Put in your domain Name - No you are not transferring your domain, this is just branding your email address to your website example - you@yourwebsite.com. You don’t have to fill in the organization info unless you really want to

Time To start with the Tutorial

**Update 11-26-2008  Go Daddy has added a new tool to the website that will automatically set the MX records for Gmail, so now you can skip step 7 - 8 and start with Gmail Apps. 

Link To Go Daddy Gmail MX tool - https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/google/gmail_login.asp

1. Go to Godaddy.com - Log into your account

2. Next Mouse over Domains Then click my Domains

3. Click the name of your Domain

4. Locate and Click Total DNS Control

5. Change the Cname Records - Locate Host Email and click the Pen button next to the X on the right side. This will save time setting it up - it essentially makes it so that you can goto email.yourhost.com - And get to your email box, use this if you are not setting up Pop or Imap email access through outlook, Thunderbird, etc

6.Change the record to look like this - Then press ok

**Skip the next two steps if you already used Godaddys Gmail MX Tool
7. Locate the MX Records - Delete Any Records in here - Do this by pressing the X on the Far side under action

8. Add in New MX records - This makes it so that Google apps can receive Email using your domain name First Picture are the settings you need to use - Second Picture is how the MX input should look

Time to Start the Google Apps Setup

1. Log into your Google Apps Control Panel - You can either find this by going to your email to get the address where it is located at. The link should looks like this http://www.google.com/a/YOURHOST.com/ If you want to you can just copy the link change it to your host name - Don’t forget to change the .com if you domain is not .com, and don’t forget the trailing / at the end.  

2. Verfiy Your Domain - You can skip this part until the end if you want to - At the top of the screen, under the Nav menu you will see this when you first log in

3. The easiest way to verify is to upload a html file.

4. One you are done Click on the Dash Board and Activate the email

5. Since your have already done all the work just scroll down to the bottom of this page and click I have Completed these Steps.

6. Click on Service Setting on the Menu Bar and goto Email

7. On this screen you want to change your Url for your email account so you are not always having to type in the long address to get to your email online. In this area you can also set up a Catch all Email. (A catch all email will get any email that comes into your domain, even if you don’t have a email account for it. An example if someone sent a email to test@yourdomain.com it would goto this catch all. Or if the same person sent an email to 123@yourdomain.com you would get it all at one place)

8. Click the Dot next to Http://________.yourhost.com/ Now type in email, Click Continue ( You changed this already at godaddy, it was one of the first changes in cname area.)

You Are Now Done with Google Apps and Godaddy Setup

These next steps are to get to your gmail account and to setup your pop3 / imap with gmail so that Thunderbird, outlook, etc can access your email. 1. Go to your email inbox (if you are following from the last step for google apps setup, just look at the top right of the screen and click inbox.) 2. The screen will look like this when it comes up, just click Settings in the top right

3. On the menu tab under settings, click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP, Select which one you want to use. I prefer Imap, but some people like pop3. Just enable it and then click on the configuration instructions and select what email program you use and follow the instructions.

Alright now you no longer have to worry about relay and pop3 email access problems. See that was not to bad, its easy to do, seeing as I have set this up a few times I can get it done in a few minutes.

Update - Information Regarding Cname Records - If your curious what it is and how to use it

A cname functions as shortcuts, a good example would be if you have not yet setup the direct url to check your email within google apps, then you have to type in ww.google.com/a/yourdomain.com  then you would log in to your account. But if you change your email cname to www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com, whenever you type in email.yourdomain.com it will instantly take you to the same place. I prefer to use ghs.google.com cname, but both links will take you to the same place.

Example & Use

Godaddy by default uses the cname records to shortcut you over to there mail server if you are using an email application such as outlook. Typically without the cname records being set by Godaddy there email settings look like this….

pop3 - pop.secureserver.net
smtp - smtp.secureserver.net

But with the use of the cname records you are able to use these other settings, and they take outlook to the same place.

pop3 - pop.yourdomain.com
smtp - smtp.yourdomain.com

There has been a few times I have moved people over to Google apps, but when some people see a gmail account setting they think they have gmail email address and they will argue that they want their domain name in the email address ( even though with google apps this automatically happens ). So what I do if I am not setting up a email account for myself, I will have a tendency of changing the cname records to reflect there domain name; plus it adds a bit of a professional look when you send them the email account settings for outlook.

To do the change just open the cname record called pop and change it to pop.gmail.com and change the smtp to smtp.gmail.com. So now the pop setting would be pop.yourdomain.com and smtp.yourdomain.com. Note: You still have to use the same port settings from google.

Word of advice, the only cname record you do not want to mess with is www and ftp.