How can I setup Google Apps Email for a subdomain?

Question

I have Google Apps setup for "domain.com". I'd like to receive mail at "[email protected]" how can I do this?

Answer 1

You can set this up as either an alias domain on your existing Apps account or as a new Apps account, entering mail.domain.com as the domain in the set up process

You will need to set up the correct DNS records against mail.domain.com.

With an Apps domain alias all users are mirrored, i.e.:

mail for [email protected] will be recieved by [email protected]

mail for [email protected] will be recieved by [email protected]

This is all done automatically for you once the alias is set up.

To set it up as an alias:

1. Log into you Google Apps dashboard

2. Click Domain Settings

3. Click Domain Names

4. Click Add a domain alias

5. Enter mail.domain.com in the textbox

6. Click Continue and verify domain ownership

7. Continue the process as you would an SLD

Answer 2

I also face the same problem, I manage a domain 'fptb.edu.ng' and wanted 'students.fptb.edu.ng' to be supported by the same Google Apps account.

I simply added the subdomain 'students.fptb.edu.ng' as a new domain (not domain alias as some people advice), I did all the verification as required by Google Apps (I used File Upload verification method).

The main issue will come in editing the MX records, Google will advice you to leave the Host as '@' which is default, but what you need to do is to put the subdomain there, so that the first 5 MX records use '@' as host which points to the primary Google Apps account and the next 5 you will add should use your subdomain as the host, in my own case, I used 'students' as the host. I am using GoDaddy for Hosting, their DNS manager sees 'students' as 'students.fptb.edu.ng', so I dont need to enter the full address, yours might be different.

At the end, I have 10 MX records.

Answer 3

You don't do it directly.

You set a user for your base domain, say, user "foo" for domain bar.com.

Then, you add the subdomain grrr.bar.com, the normal way.

Then, you wait 24h, and, an alias will appear on the domain manager.

Then, you test the target email adress, and if it does not work, you go in gmail interface for that user, and add an alias in the USER Gmail interface.

I can not discribe details of each operation, because processes changed at least 4 times since I started using Google/Apps in 2002.

Fact you have to wait 24h before all alias are created for subdomains have been discussed here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/Apps/Zb_jBFnhcIQ As said, this delay is not mentionned anywhere.

Once you see in your admin console that user [email protected] exists, and that subdomain grrr.bar.com also exists, then, just be patient (if you can; or if you can't, insult Google dev team on the forum).

My main user has 26 aliases; and about 12 subdomains; so, somewhere the dashboard says I have about 360 email aliases.

I also had to set the 5 MX lines for each subdomain; so my zone is at least 60 lines long as well (140 in preactice).

The way Google made things implies various side effects: you CAN NOT have different Gmail accounts for [email protected] and [email protected]; the second name is always an alias for the first name.

Alias due to subdomains are not counted in the alias count for a user; the limit of 30 alias per user do not apply (consider) to subdomains. My main user has 26 aliases, and 12 subdomains, and that single Gmail inbox receives messages for 26*12= ~360 email target names.

This is very poorly described in Google documentations. And my forum thread is locked.