Email addresses



Unlimited email addresses are included with all DreamHost hosting. All email addresses are setup and managed in the panel's Manage Email page.

Email Address Types


"'I want Joe to have his own inbox, joe@my_domain.com.'" A fully hosted email is an account with a password that can send emails and also has an inbox where received emails are stored, a 'regular' email account. You can access stored emails using webmail or a regular mail program using POP3 or IMAP.

"'I want all the sales emails, the ones sent to sales@my_domain.com, to go to Sam's inbox.'" A forward-only email address simply forwards all emails to one or more other addresses, it does not store emails or have a mail account login. A forward-only email address is great if you want to be able to receive mail using more than one name but only have one inbox, such as having infomation@your_domain.com forward to the person actually in charge of sales.

Managing Email Addresses
The Create New Email Address button in the panel's Manage Email page has three different email address types or configurations.

The Edit buttons can be used to change an existing email address's settings, and even change it from one type of address to another. The Delete button completely removes the email address and any stored emails.



Fully Hosted Email
To make an email address fully hosted, enter the name portion of the email address, select the domain from the dropdown, enter a name for the mailbox and a password. Enter in the 'List...' textbox any email addresses you want emails to be forwarded to, make any adjustments to the tidy inbox settings, and click the Save Changes button.



Forward-Only Email
To make an email address forward-only, enter the name portion of the email address and select the domain from the dropdown. Enter in the 'List...' textbox any email addresses you want emails to be forwarded to and click the Forward To These Addresses! button.



Garbage Email
A garbage email address silently deletes all emails received, without sending any 'bounce' or notification back to the sender.

To make an email address a garbage email, enter the name portion of the email address, select the domain from the dropdown, and click the Create Garbage Account! button.



Disabled email address
The Disable button stops all incoming emails to a fully hosted email address. The older emails already delivered are saved and can still be accessed, while all newly arriving emails are deleted and a 'bounce' or notification sent back to the sender.

My email address now has some lines through it, why?
Only fully hosted email addresses have a name, a mailbox manager link, and disk usage information. When an email address that used to be fully hosted is Edited and saved as something else, that information is crossed out.

Special Email Address Names
Most email addresses are just a name or department at your domain, like frank.smith@your_domain.com or sales@your_domain.com. Some email addresses serve a specific purpose or act in a particular way.

Internet Standards Email Addresses
Internet standards specify some email addresses that all domains should have and use for standard purposes. There's no internet police that will punish you for not having them, but having these email addresses is not too much trouble and can help avoid problems.

Catch-All
An email address with the name "catch-all" will receive emails sent to any email address on the domain except those you have explicitly setup. Essencially, every email sent to any address on your domain will be delivered, either to the specific email address you setup, or to the catch-all address.

For example, if you've set up email addresses for Bob@your_domain.com and Jae@your_domain.com, but no email address for Liz, any emails addressed to Liz@your_domain.com will be sent to catch-all@your_domain.com.

Anti-spam filtering cannot be used for any domain that has a catch-all address.

Catch-all addresses cannot forward to email addresses outside DreamHost. Catch-all addresses can only forward to other DreamHost-hosted email addresses.

Plus- or Wildcard- Addresses
Any email address you've setup in the panel's Manage Email page can be customized when you use it. Start from the basic user@your_domain.com and add to the user portion a + symbol and any custom keyword or text. Emails sent to user+keyword@your_domain.com will be delivered normally to user@your_domain.com

For example:
 * user+money@your_domain.com
 * user+family@your_domain.com
 * user+party@your_domain.com

These keywords can be used in combination with Message Filters to easily sort your incoming emails.

You can also use these as "disposable" e-mail addresses as well. For example, when you sign-up for a specific service you can give them your address as john+getrichquick@doe.com. If you start getting junk from them and can't unsubscribe you can always set up a keyword filter to just delete any incoming message send to that address. It's that simple.