How to Set Up Email Forwarding / Routing Using Cloudflare

Jeremy Launder
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14 steps
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2 minutes

This tutorial assumes your domain is registered with Cloudflare or the domain has already been added to your Cloudflare account and the nameservers are pointed to your Cloudflare account and Cloudflare controls your DNS settings. If the domain is not controlled with your Cloudflare account, complete that step first and come back to this tutorial.

Click "Websites"

Click the website / domain name you want to set up email routing for

Click "Email"

Click "Get Started"

In the "Custom address" field enter the email address you'd like to use. In the "Destination" field, enter the email address you would like to route / forward email to. In the example below, email sent to [hello@gomds.net](mailto:hello@gomds.net) will be forwarded to [jeremy.launder@gmail.com](mailto:jeremy.launder@gmail.com) .

You should see the screen below and the status of your destination email address will be pending verification. Cloudflare will send an email to the destination email address with a link to click to verify the email address.

Go to the inbox for your destination email address and fine the verification email from Cloudflare

Open the email and click "Verify email address"

You will be take to a page like the one below stating that your email address is now verified

Head back to your Cloudflare account and you should see that your destination email address Status is now Verified. Click "Continue".

If you were already using email with this domain previously, changing your MX records will mean that the email you were using before will no longer work and only the forwarding you are setting up in Cloudflare will work going forward. If this is a new domain or you were not using email with the domain name before, then you can ignore this alert.

The next screen will show some records that need to be added to your domain name in order for Cloudflare to receive your email. Click "Add records and enable" to automatically add the records to your domain name.

Click on "Destination addresses" and you should see your destination email address in the list.

Send a test email to your new email address. Make sure to send the email from an email address that is different than the email address you are forwarding the new email to.\ \ For example, I set up <mailto:hello@gomds.net> and forward it to <mailto:jeremy.launder@gmail.com>, so I'm sending the test email from a different email address I have that is not one of those two email addresses.

Go to your destination email inbox. If everything is setup properly you will see the test email you just sent to your new email address.