How to configure free business emails or domain specific emails with outlook.com (like google apps)

Outlook has discontinued this offer. You can still get 25 free mail accounts on zoho.

You can configure Business/domain specific emails in 4 easy steps and get 50 email ids, all for free.

Before proceeding towards new setup there are few things to ensure first.

  1. You can only run 1 email service per domain. If you have already configured your domain with any other email service, the new setup will stop it. e.g. If you are using Google Apps with your domain they will stop working. However you will still be able to access them until service provider deletes your account.
  2. The new setup will be done on outlook.com which is still under beta.
  3. If you have a running email service and wants to migrate, then choose an off-peak time because the setup will take around 1 hour and all arriving mails will be bounced back for the period.

Assuming you have taken care of all above points we can proceed towards setup:

Setup outlook.com on a custom domain

  1. Open domains.live.com and login with your existing hotmail/live/outlook email id. You must have redirected back to domains.live.com (if not open it again). Now click “Add Domain” button. Enter your new domain and select “Set up Outlook.com for my domain”. And click continue.
  2. You will be then provided with a list of MX, A, TXT, SPF records. These are DNS records. Open your Domain control panel and update the settings as given. Add all the records to DNS config.
  3. Once you have completed all these steps wait for 30-60 mins for DNS records to be migrated to all servers. (Your max waiting time depends upon your previous update time of each record. Generally it is 60 mins but in some servers it is set to different timing. This is your max waiting time.) You can check the update status by pressing refresh button given on the MX records list page. Once update is completed you will be redirected back towards Add member account page.
  4. Add your members accounts. And you are all done.

To access your mails simply login at outlook.com. You have any Suggestions, Ideas or doubt? Share them in comment section below.

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