Help / Domain administrator guide

Domain administrator guide

This guide is for the owner of one or more domains (for example example.com). You can do everything in the Single account user guide, and you can also manage every mailbox and forwarder in your domains.

Your Dashboard

After you log in, the Dashboard lists Your domains, with each domain's administrators and reseller. Each row has three links:

Mailboxes: the email accounts that people log in to.
Forwarders: addresses that pass incoming mail on to another address.
Aliases: extra addresses, such as postmaster, whose mail goes to a mailbox or forwarder in the same domain.

You can only see and change the domains you administer. Adding or deleting a whole domain, and choosing its administrators, is done by your reseller or the server owner.

A domain can have several administrators. One of them is the primary administrator (marked (primary) on the Domains page): only they can change the domain's allowance and the quota new mailboxes get. All administrators can do everything else in this guide, including setting the quota of individual mailboxes.

If any mailbox in your domains has had its sending suspended, a red Suspended senders in your domains panel appears at the top of the Dashboard, with a Lift suspension button for each (see Suspended sending).

DNS

DNS (on the Domains page, or in the menu under the domain) lists the DNS records the domain needs for its mail to be handled here, each checked against what DNS answers now: Done, Add, Change (the current value is shown) or Remove the others. The changes are made wherever the domain's DNS is managed. If the domain's DNS is on our own name servers (shown under Name servers on the page), its reseller publishes them from there instead. The primary administrator also switches DKIM signing on there, once the DKIM record is published.

If the reseller has allowed you to edit the domain's DNS, DNS zone in the menu lists every record in its zone and adds, changes or deletes them, each shown before and after first, with a history and Undo. Records marked Mail Admin are kept right from the DNS page and can't be changed there.

Mailboxes

Click Mailboxes next to a domain on the Dashboard, or in the menu under Domains click the domain, then Mailboxes. The list shows every mailbox, when it last logged in to email, and its status: Active, Sending suspended (until the time shown) or Account disabled.

Add a mailbox

Under Add mailbox, enter the Local part, which is the part before the @. For jane@example.com, enter jane.
A Password is suggested; keep it or type your own of at least 8 characters.
Optionally enter a Quota; it overrides the defaults, even if lower. Left blank, the mailbox gets the domain's quota for new mailboxes, or 5 GB if the domain has none. Every mailbox has a quota; it can't be unlimited.
Click Create mailbox, then give the address and password to the user. They can change the password themselves under My Account.

Reset a mailbox password

Click Reset password on the mailbox's row.
Keep the suggested password or type your own (at least 8 characters), and click Set password.

A password you set here takes effect at once. Unlike a change the user makes on My Account, it doesn't need confirming. It doesn't lift a sending suspension: do that with Lift suspension (see Suspended sending). You can't reset the password of anyone who outranks you.

Delete a mailbox

Click Delete on the mailbox's row and confirm. The account stops working straight away, so incoming mail for that address is no longer delivered to it. You cannot undo this.

Recovery details and two-step login

The Two-step column shows whether two-step login is on for a mailbox (see the Single account user guide). It's never turned on automatically. Click Recovery on a row to set the user's recovery email, for example when they change providers, and to tick or untick Two-step login. Two-step login needs a recovery email or an authenticator app; On (app) means the user has set up an authenticator app (only they can, from My Account). If they lose their phone, click Recovery, then Remove authenticator app; two-step login then stays on only if they have a recovery email. If the user has passkeys, the panel shows how many, with Remove passkeys (all of them) for a lost device; they can then log in with their password and add new ones. Text messages aren't available yet, so the mobile box reads Not yet activated. Users who log in from one of their last 3 addresses don't need a code. You can't change the settings of anyone who outranks you. While a user's Mail Admin login is disabled, the Recovery button is hidden and the Two-step column shows "—". The settings return when their login is enabled again.

Disable an account

Disable account stops all logins for a mailbox: email programs, webmail, sending mail, and logging in here. Mail sent to it is still delivered. The Status column then shows Account disabled. To turn it back on, click Enable account; its password is unchanged. If the account was misused, also click Reset password. You can't disable or enable your own account, or the account of anyone who outranks you. To block only logins to this website while email keeps working, use Disable login here instead (see below).

Suspended sending (anti-spam)

The mail server automatically suspends an account's sending when it sends to more than a set number of recipients in an hour, or when too many of the messages it sends bounce as undeliverable. Usually either the account's password has been stolen and a spammer is using it, or the user has sent to a large mailing list, or one full of addresses that no longer work. Stopping it quickly keeps other mail providers from blacklisting the whole server.

While an account is suspended, mail it tries to send is refused (the user's email program shows an error). It can still receive mail and log in. The suspension ends on its own, after an hour at first; each repeat within 30 days lasts twice as long, up to a week. You'll see it in two places:

the Suspended senders in your domains panel on your Dashboard, listing every suspended mailbox in all your domains, why and until when;
Sending suspended under the mailbox's Status on the Mailboxes page.

Before lifting a suspension early, find out which of the two it was:

The user didn't send the messages: treat the account as compromised. Click Reset password on the mailbox and give the user the new password (or ask them to change it themselves), then lift the suspension.
The user sent them: ask them to remove the bouncing addresses and to use a mailing-list service for bulk mail, then lift it.

Click Lift suspension on the Dashboard panel or on the mailbox's row. Users can't lift their own. If the account breaks the rules again, it is suspended again, for longer. Every suspension and every lift is recorded in the audit log.

Quotas

A quota limits how much mail a mailbox can store. A domain's allowance limits how much all its mailboxes together can store. Your reseller may give the primary administrator a cap: the total they can share out between their domains. The Quotas page shows your cap, how much you have handed out and what remains.

Overall Quota - This Domain (primary administrator only): at the top of the Mailboxes page, enter a size under Overall Quota - This Domain and click Set allowance. The allowance counts against your cap; the mailbox quotas inside the domain may then add up to more than it.
Quota for new mailboxes (primary administrator only): at the top of the Mailboxes page, enter a size and click Set default. Mailboxes created afterwards with no quota typed in get it, even if it is below the standard 5 GB. Existing mailboxes keep their quotas. Blank means the standard 5 GB.
One mailbox: click Quota on its row. Enter a size, for example 8 GB. Every mailbox needs a quota: unlimited and a blank box are refused.
Sizes can be typed as 500 MB, 2 GB, 1.5G, or a plain number of megabytes.
A change that would take you over your cap is refused and tells you how much is left. In a domain without an allowance, every mailbox quota counts against the cap. In a domain with an allowance, mailbox quotas aren't counted against the cap.

Once quotas are enforced, the mail server warns by email at 80%, 90% and 95%: a mailbox's warning goes to the mailbox, the domain's administrators and its reseller; a domain's to its administrators and reseller. When a mailbox, or its whole domain, is full, new mail for it is deferred: the sending server keeps retrying for a few days, so nothing is lost if space is freed in time. Mail to postmaster@ and abuse@ is still accepted when the domain is full.

Quotas are proposed only until your reseller sets a date for the domain (Quota enforcement at the top of the Mailboxes page). Until then mail keeps arriving even above a quota. Once mailbox usage is available, the Quota column shows how much each mailbox is using, and (over) if it's above its quota.

If someone needs time to clean up before enforcement starts, open Quota on their row and set a later Enforce from date for that mailbox alone, up to 90 days after the domain's date.

Disabling Mail Admin login

You can stop people logging in to this control panel. Their email keeps working: they can still send and receive mail and use their email programs. Both controls are on the Mailboxes page.

One person: click Disable login here on their row. Click Enable login here to let them back in.
The whole domain: click Do not allow users to log in here at the top of the page. Click Allow users to log in here to undo it.

The Login here column shows Allowed, Disabled or Disabled (domain) for each mailbox. Anyone who is logged in when you disable them is logged out the next time they click anything.

Rules:

Disabling only affects people ranked the same as you or lower. It never affects your reseller or the server owner.
Disabling a whole domain only affects ordinary users. It never locks out the person who did it, or any administrator or reseller; disable those one by one.
You can't disable your own login.
If your reseller or the server owner disabled someone, you can't enable them again.

Forwarders

A forwarder sends mail addressed to one address (for example sales@example.com) to another address, which can be on any domain.

Open Forwarders from the Dashboard, or in the menu under Domains: click the domain, then Forwarders.
Select the domain from the Domain list. Only domains you administer are shown, and you can only change forwarders in the domain you selected.

Add a forwarder

Under Add forwarder, enter the Local part (for sales@example.com, enter sales).
Enter the Target address, the full address the mail should go to.
Click Add forwarder.

To forward an address to several places, add it once for each target: a copy goes to each. If the address is also a mailbox, the mailbox keeps a copy too.

Change a forwarder

Click Edit on the forwarder's row, change the target address, and click Save.

Delete a forwarder

Click Delete on the forwarder's row and confirm. For an address with several targets, this removes only that target.

A forwarder can also be set to Refused (mail to the address is turned away, with a message) or Discarded. Those can be deleted here but not yet created.

Domain aliases

A domain alias is another name for a mailbox or forwarder in the same domain. Use it for role addresses like postmaster@example.com, webmaster@example.com or info@example.com, so their mail lands in an existing mailbox without creating a new one.

How an alias differs from a forwarder:

An alias can only deliver to a mailbox or forwarder in the same domain. A forwarder can send mail to any address, on any domain.
An alias is only a name. It has no mailbox, and nobody can log in with it.
If the mailbox or forwarder an alias points to is deleted, the alias stops working, and mail sent to it is refused. The Aliases page shows this as Target missing.
An address can't be both an alias and a mailbox or forwarder. Delete one before you create the other.

Open Aliases from the Dashboard, or in the menu under Domains: click the domain, then Aliases.
Under Add alias, enter the Alias local part (for postmaster@example.com, enter postmaster).
Choose the mailbox or forwarder under Deliver to, then click Create alias.

To change where an alias delivers, click Edit, choose a different mailbox or forwarder, and click Save. To remove it, click Delete and confirm.

Tracing email

Mail trace in the menu works as described in the Single account user guide, but covers every address in your domains, including forwarders. Search for a mailbox, a domain, part of a subject, or the Server ID or Message-ID from a message's Details.

Mail sent to a forwarder shows where it was forwarded to and what that server replied.
If one of your users sent a message to someone in another domain, you see whether it was delivered, but not where the other domain forwarded it.
Refused before arrival lists mail our server turned away, for example from block-listed servers or to addresses that don't exist. Those senders get an error straight away.
Mail waiting in the queue lists your domains' messages that are still being retried. You can't delete or resend them from here.

Things to know

Changes reach the mail server straight away. There is nothing to restart.
Your own login is a mailbox in one of your domains. If you delete it, you will not be able to log in again.
If you open a domain that isn't yours, for example by editing the address bar, you will see Forbidden.