How to set up a family email address

Setting up a family email address is easy even if you don’t have IT know-how. All you need is a domain and a bit of time to prepare cus­tom­ised mailboxes for your family members.

Why it makes sense to have your own family email address

Many families opt for shared mailboxes through their trusted email service provider. With the help of in­di­vidu­al folder struc­tures and filter rules, incoming messages are presorted so each family member has their own small area for digital com­mu­nic­a­tion. Although this type of shared family email address requires a lot of effort, it’s the only way to make good use of a general address such as familybloggs@xyz.com.

A more elegant solution is to have in­di­vidu­al email addresses for each family member. With your own email domain, you have complete freedom and access to numerous exclusive benefits. Unlike when hosting your own email server, you don’t need any technical expertise or hardware to set up your own email domain. Typically, you only need to complete a few steps in the account you have with your hosting provider.

What are the ad­vant­ages of having a custom email address?

Having a custom domain or email address for the family isn’t just a con­veni­ent way to provide all family members with a private mailbox, it’s also easy to set up and offers various ad­vant­ages over mail accounts with standard email services:

• Cross-device avail­ab­il­ity: Thanks to IMAP support, you can retrieve received messages at your address anywhere and at any time from any device.
• Ad­vert­ising-free mailboxes: Custom domain addresses typically incur low monthly costs but ensure ad-free, clutter-free mailboxes.
• Pro­tec­tion against spam and other threats: Opting for your own family domain provides access to highly effective security mech­an­isms offered by pro­fes­sion­al providers, sur­pass­ing those of standard webmail solutions.
• Legally compliant archiving: Many providers offer optional email archiving, which allows you to store all your messages in a legally compliant and secure manner.
• More in­di­vidu­al­ity: Family email addresses, featuring first and last names, allow for easy dif­fer­en­ti­ation and convey pro­fes­sion­al­ism when com­mu­nic­at­ing via email.

How to set up a family email account

You can set up per­son­al­ised addresses for the whole family in a matter of minutes. The exact process varies from provider to provider, however, the basic procedure is generally the same. The basic steps are as follows:

1. Select a domain: First you need to register a domain that suits your family. This is the part that comes after the @ sign. A good option would be lastname.com, so that you can set up family email addresses along the lines of firstname@lastname.com.

2 Purchase a mail package: Explore providers that offer cus­tom­is­able email hosting packages with ample storage space. Think about all the family members you want to set up an address for and select a package that offers a suf­fi­cient number of mailboxes.

3. Set up family email addresses: Once the domain and storage/mailbox are activated, you can create the email addresses you want (along with passwords) through the provider’s customer account. Ad­di­tion­al settings, such as con­fig­ur­ing spam filters or mail for­ward­ing, are often available as well.

How to set up your own family email addresses with IONOS

With IONOS, you can establish per­son­al­ised family email addresses ef­fort­lessly. You’ll receive all the essential com­pon­ents, including a domain, suitable mail packages with 2 gigabytes or more of storage space, spam filters and 24/7 expert support.

Below we have sum­mar­ised the in­di­vidu­al steps for setting up an email address with IONOS.

Step 1: Register a domain

The found­a­tion for your custom family email addresses is your domain. You can acquire this directly as part of an IONOS mail package or sep­ar­ately.

The domain checker helps you to check the avail­ab­il­ity of your desired domain. If your first choice is taken, the tool auto­mat­ic­ally suggests al­tern­at­ives, including al­tern­at­ive top-level domains.

Step 2: Log in to your customer account and select your email product

Once you’ve secured a domain, you can start setting up your family email address. To do this, navigate to the Login page for the IONOS Cloud Panel and log in with your account data. Then select Email and an email product, e.g., Mail Basic.

Step 3: Set up family email address

Once you’ve selected a domain and email package, click on Create new email address and fill out the following fields:

• Email: The part of the family email address that comes before the @ sign
• @: Select the domain you want to use
• Password: Create a password for the email address

Op­tion­ally, you can also add up to ten for­ward­ing des­tin­a­tions for incoming messages by selecting Add for­ward­ing target and typing in the addresses. You can also add virus pro­tec­tion and email archiving at an ad­di­tion­al cost.

Click Save to finish setting up your new mailbox.

Step 4: Adding emails

You’ll receive a message to confirm suc­cess­ful account creation as soon as the email account has been set up. Click on Create another e-mail address to continue setting up address for your family members.

If required, you can purchase ad­di­tion­al domains at any time to add further email addresses—for example, for pro­fes­sion­al purposes.