Yandex custom email setup guide | Yandex email hosting

Hi again ✌ without a doubt if you are an entrepreneur, you might think of a personal and much professional email with your own domain name. I can remember, the day I created my email from Gmail for my CV. I spent 30 minutes to find an available username (not a gibberish one) but I never satisfied with it. After a few years, I found Yandex email hosting

Ok! That’s enough, I know you aren’t here to listen to my story LOL.

This tutorial is for those who hosted their website on unmanaged servers like Vultr, Digitalocean, VpsDime, etc… and those who need free email hosting for their personal email or startup. We going to use Yandex email hosting as our hosting partner.

I will try my best to separate every step. Feel free to put a comment if you stuck!

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Why Yandex?

Yandex ↱ is a Russian based search engine. Pretty similar to Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The important part for us is they provide free custom email hosting (similar to Google’s Gsuit $6/mo). This is more than enough for startups and individuals to build their professional email boxes.

Yandex email hosting provides 10 GB of storage space so I don’t think you run out of space unless you share very large files. Yandex email client Interface is quite simple but provides all necessary functionalities. They provide SMTP, POP3 and IMAP server so it’s so easy to migrate from Yandex to Gsuite or whatever email hosting provider that you need to migrate with. As a benefit, you can configure Yandex custom domain email with any of your favorite email clients. Even you can connect with your Gmail account so you can send and receive emails to your Gmail email. Sounds cool! Right?

Well, If you are thinking what the heck this guy is talking about, hold your breath. All readiest to start. Let’s start with DNS. I’m not going to explain DNS. You can find more information about DNS from this article: Link to article ↱

How to find DNS editor

You have to edit your DNS records in order to configure Yandex

I’m going to use Cloudflare as my DNS provider. I think the majority of users use Cloudflare as DNS provider. If you are not using Cloudflare, no worries. I will put resource links to find your DNS editor. If you don’t have a domain name, I recommend you to use purchase a domain from Namecheap. You have hundreds of TLDs to select for your brand name/name.

How to add/edit DNS records in popular domain registrars

• Bluehost: Support Link ↱
• Namecheap: Support Link ↱
• Godaddy: Support Link ↱
• 1and1 (Ionos): Support Link ↱

Not listed? You can simply search on Google like “edit DNS records [yourRegistrarName]”. You don’t need to change or edit anything for now. Just go through the article to find DNS editor and understand how they add DNS records.

Connect your domain with Yandex Connect

1. You have to create a Yandex account mail.yandex.com. It’s the same as creating a Gmail account. If you already have an account you can login.
2. Open a new tab and browse to https://connect.yandex.ru/pdd/ (If you see Russian Language scroll down to the footer and change the language)
3. Type your domain name (don’t use www) and click SignUp for Free. (My domain is dartits.com)
4. Then you will redirect to the webmaster page (So many Russian letters? don’t worry). Click on “Подтвердить домен“.
   
5. Click on DNS record tab to verify your domain. You will see a text like yandex-verification: 0034bf3dd1f8d6c5 . You must have a different text. Copy the text into your clipboard.
   
6. Now you have to add that text to your DNS using a TXT record. In my case, I’m using Cloudflare as DNS provider. Create/Add a new DNS record with:
   * Type: TXT
   * Name/Host: dartits.com (your domain) OR you can use @ symbol (@ refers to the root domain).
   * Content/Text: yandex-verification: 0034bf3dd1f8d6c5 paste the text you copied from Yandex (Check the previous step).
   * TTL: Leave the default value or use 3600. (Cloudflare users has ‘auto’ TTL for this).
   Double-check the information and save/add the record. 
   
7. Navigate to the Yandex portal and click Check  button. Then you will see the status Check in progress. Wait for a few minutes. If you see something like DNS record not found you have to wait for the DNS propagation ↱. This can take up to 48 hours. It depends on your DNS provider (domain registrar).
   I was lucky enough. It just took 2 minutes to update my DNS record. If you see the above message, try again in a few minutes. If you accidentally close Yandex portal, you can use this link Yandex WebMaster ↱ to navigate back to Step 4. The text won’t change so you don’t need to add it again. Just click on Check button.

   Final Step

8. If everything fine, you will be redirected to another page. It will show a message like: MX records for this domain have not been set up. Now you have to add four DNS records to your domain DNS.
   Using previous knowledge, add those records to your domain DNS.
   * There are two new DNS record types: CNAME and MX
   * In MX record you will have an extra field to add: Priority
   * @ is referred to as your domain name. For me, @ equals to dartits.com
   * When you are adding mail as host/name, it can be changed into mail.yourdomain.com. It’s totally fine.
   * You must be good at copy & paste ?
   Added DNS records
   
9. If you are done with adding new records. Go ahead and refresh the Yandex page. If you still see this message: MX records for this domain have not been set up. You have to wait for the DNS propagation. This process will take more time than domain verification. I’m not sure about how long it takes to refresh Yandex DNS. You can’t do anything about it. Just wait for the result. For me, it took around 12 hours to update DNS. Close the browser and relax.
   Here’s the link where you can find the status: Yandex WebMaster ↱
   If your domain successfully connected with Yandex, you will see a green dot with the text confirmed. (Check the following image).
   

You are doing great! If you need help to setup this DNS records, feel free to use comment section.

Create Emails

Most awaited part. Isn’t it?

1. Now you have to navigate to ‘Admin Tools’. Simply, click the Admin Tools menu from the left sidebar. Direct Link: https://connect.yandex.ru/portal/admin
   
2. Click on the first tab you see at the sidebar (It is the default department name. You can create your own departments). Then, click on the add button at the bottom of the page and select ‘Add Person’.
   
3. Now, you can fill in your information. Make sure to select your language and user name (your new email). Finally, click on the Add button.
   
4. Guess what! You have successfully created your own professional email on Yandex email hosting. Before the next step. You can give admin privileges to your new email.
   * Navigate to Admin tab.
   * Click on Add admin button and start typing your newly created email. You will see your email at the dropdown.
   * Select and click Add button.

   Let’s login

5. Move your mouse to the avatar icon at the top right corner. You will see an option to add a user. Go ahead and click on it.
   
6. Type your newly created email and password to login. Click on Complete Registation.
   BOOM!
   
7. TESTING TIME… test your email by sending a test email. Like a BOSS.
   

That’s it! If you are already tired, you can stop the tutorial from here. You can download Yandex mail for your iOS or Android device.

For advanced users

This information going to be helpful for those who need to use their own email clients instead of Yandex mail. Even you can use these settings to connect this email with your favorite Gmail interface. I’m not going to teach you how to do it right now. You can find lots of tutorials on that topic. BTW, if you need that tutorial you can request using the comment section.

Yandex Mail SMTP Server Settings

These are the different options you need to mimic in your email program in order to send messages through your Yandex.Mail account:

• Yandex.Mail SMTP server address: smtp.yandex.com
• Yandex.Mail SMTP user name: Your full email address (including @yandex.com or in your case, [email protected])
• Yandex.Mail SMTP password: Your password
• Yandex.Mail SMTP port: 465
• Yandex.Mail SMTP TLS/SSL required: yes
• Yandex.Mail SMTP STARTTLS required: no

Yandex Mail POP3 Server Settings

The Yandex.Mail POP server settings for accessing incoming messages in any email program are:

• Yandex.Mail POP server address: pop.yandex.com
• Yandex.Mail POP user name: Your full email address (including @yandex.com or in your case, [email protected])
• Yandex.Mail POP password: Your password
• Account type: POP3
• Yandex.Mail POP port: 995
• Yandex.Mail POP TLS/SSL required: yes, select SSL/TLS
• Yandex.Mail POP STARTTLS required: no

Yandex Mail IMAP Server Settings

With Yandex.Mail IMAP access enabled, you can set up a new IMAP email account in your iOS Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird email program or any other email client. For other email programs, set up a new IMAP account in it using the following generic IMAP and SMTP settings.

• Yandex.Mail IMAP server address: imap.yandex.com
• Yandex.Mail IMAP user name: Your email address (including @yandex.com or in your case, [email protected])
• Yandex.Mail IMAP password: Your password
• Yandex.Mail IMAP Port: 993
• Yandex.Mail IMAP TLS/SSL: Yes

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Conclusion

Yandex custom domain email service (Yandex email hosting) is a great way to create your personal and professional emails for free. You don’t need to worry about server maintenance, virus, and spam filtering. Yandex will take care of those.  As a startup, you can completely cut off the budget for email servers and management.

One thing I should mention. Please don’t abuse this service. Do not SPAM. Just use it for good purposes.