Using a personalized domain with O365 Family
I want to start this post with the mention that Microsoft is going to be sunsetting this feature at the end of November 2023. So if this is something you are interested in… Hurry up as the opportunity is going away very soon. As per the Microsoft Support page (link):
“Starting November 30, 2023, Microsoft 365 Personal or Microsoft 365 Family subscribers will no longer be able to create a new personalized email address associated with their Outlook.com inbox,”
Associating and using a personal domain with my O365 Family plan to allow personalized email addresses is something that has really appealed to me, being that I live and work in the tech realm. However, to my disappointment, this feature is only officially supported by Microsoft thru GoDaddy.
I personally do not want to have to switch registrars though. I’m quite happy with the folks that host my name servers and I will not budge on that. GoDaddy might be “ok” at best for tech newb with zero experience. I personally have had bad experiences with them, and their constant attempts of upselling you at every click I find extremely annoying. So then I was left trying to figure out how to still get my domain without switching registrars. Thankfully, thanks to the Internet, i was able to discover that someone already solved my problem. I found a post on Reddit by u/khatarian that explained what I needed to do.
Reminder: While this does work, it is not officially supported.
1) Open Outlook.com in your browser, open ‘Settings’ and go to the ‘Premium’ settings.
Click the “Get started” button under ‘Personalized email address’.
2) Click the button “Get a domain”. A new window will open.
3) Copy the URL of the new window that opens, it will appear like: https://domainconnect.godaddy.com/v2/domainTemplates/providers/outlook.com/services/personalizedoutlookemail/apply?mxRecordValue=XXXXXXXXX&state=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
The part that is needed is “mxRecordValue=XXXXXXXXX” The XXXXXXXXX is a unique ID that Microsoft will check for during DNS verification. Save that in notepad for later…
4) Go to your own personal site’s DNS settings and add the following values, replacing XXXXXXXXX with the value you retrieved in step 3.
Note: Your DNS manager may use different syntax for it’s entries. Please adapt these entries accordingly. The dot at the end is not a typo!
| Name | TTL | Type | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| @ | 1 hour | MX | 0 XXXXXXXXX.pamx1.hotmail.com. |
| @ | 1 hour | TXT | v=spf1 include:outlook.com -all |
| autodiscover | 1 hour | CNAME | autodiscover.outlook.com. |
| _dmarc | 1 hour | TXT | v=DMARC1; p=none; |
| _domainconnect | 1 hour | CNAME | _domainconnect.gd.domaincontrol.com. |
| _outlook | 1 hour | TXT | XXXXXXXXX |
FWIW – This is what the settings look like at NameCheap.com.
5) Return to your ‘Premium Settings’ in Outlook.com
6) Select and click the option “I already own a GoDaddy doamin”
7) Enter the personalized domain name that you used above and have configured the DNS entries for.
8) Click the “Sign in” button and then close the page it opens.
9) Woo-Hoo! You did it. It should now say that you are connected to the domain.
I’m confirmed that it works for one of the domains I own. I couldn’t be happier. Now it’s time for you to do it before the end of November 2023!