A Beginner's Guide to Signing up for Google Workspace
You’re now ready to set up Gmail as your business email for your domain (and, if you haven’t already, verify your domain).
To do this, you need to sign in to your domain host and direct the email for your domain to the Google Workspace servers. It’s like registering your new address with the post office when you move so that your mail gets delivered to the right place. We’ll walk you through the steps.
Before you begin
- Verify that you own your domain.
Or, you can verify now with an MX record. We’ll show you how while you're setting up the MX records.
- Create user accounts in Google Workspace for your team.
If your team members already use email with your domain (their email address ends with your domain), you have to create their user accounts in Google Workspace before you change any MX record settings. Otherwise, they won't be able to send or receive messages with their business address in Gmail.
Change your MX records
Step 1: Sign in to your domain host
Plesk is a tool that many hosting providers use to manage DNS settings, on both shared and virtual private server (VPS) offerings. For help accessing Plesk, contact your domain host's support team.
If you have configured local email addresses for a domain, changing the MX records to Google can cause these inboxes to stop working. Add all of your users, email aliases, and domains before switching to Google MX records to keep these inboxes active.
Step 2: Go to your DNS records
- In your Plesk control panel, click Domains.
- Click the domain that you want to set up with Google MX records.
- Click DNS Settings.
Step 3: Delete existing MX records
- Check the boxes for the following records to be deleted:
- dmarc.example.com (TXT record)
- mail.example.com (A record)
- example.com (MX 10 record)
- webmail.example.com (A record)
Note: The most important record to remove is the MX record. But to avoid conflicts, the DMARC TXT (if any) and A records for mail and webmail should also be removed.
- Click Remove.
Step 4: Add the new MX records
If you have configured local email addresses for a domain, changing the MX records can cause these inboxes to stop working. Add all of your users, email aliases, and domains before switching to Google MX records to keep these inboxes active.
- On the DNS tab toolbar, click Add Record.
- From the Record Type list, select MX.
- Leave the Mail Domain field empty.
- Enter SMTP.GOOGLE.COM. in the Mail exchange server field.
- In the Specify the priority of the mail exchange server list, select very high (0) as the record priority.
- Click OK.
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After all of the MX records are added, click Update.
Step 5: Tell Google to find your new MX records
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Return to the browser tab where you have the Google Workspace setup tool open. (You can reopen the tool if you closed it.)
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Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Activate Gmail.
Important! Some registrars may require additional time to publish your MX records. If the Google Workspace setup tool can't find your new records, wait an hour before you try again.
If you need additional help with your DNS settings, please contact your registrar. They are experts in managing your domain and are eager to help you.
Google, Google Workspace, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC. All other company and product names are trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.
