- I've just found a brand new way
to create a custom email address and it's totally free.
It's called Skiff, and it's a relatively new platform
that features end-to-end encryption for all your emails.
So how does Skiff work
and how do you connect your own domain to it?
Skiff was launched in 2020
and it's a privacy first suite of apps with email,
cloud storage, documents, and calendar built in.
You can create a free your name at Skiff.com email address
but you can also connect your own domain
and make a custom email all for free.
I like Skiff because it's a Google alternative
that offers increased privacy and security.
Skiff has paid plans with more features
so they're not relying
on harvesting user data to stay in business.
And Skiff is one of the only platforms
where you can get a completely custom email address
hosted for free.
Before choosing Skiff there is one thing
you need to be aware of,
Skiff mail cannot be accessed
through a third party email client.
This means the only way you can check your email
is in the Skiff web interface,
or using their apps for iOS, Android, Mac, or Windows.
Skiff has done a great job building out their apps,
and I think it makes sense
that they don't support third party clients
since it's end-to-end encrypted.
But make sure you try the free version of Skiff
using an at Skiff.com email address
so you can poke around in the web interface
and make sure you like it
before you connect your domain name.
I decided to take the plunge
and migrate my personal Gmail address
to a custom email hosted by Skiff.
I've always felt stuck to Gmail
because changing my email address
across hundreds of accounts is a daunting task,
but I realize that if I'm gonna be changing
to a custom email address,
I can change email hosts at any time in the future
and I'm not gonna have to change my email
again in my accounts.
So I realized that it was worth it
to just put in the hard work
and change my email address in all my accounts slowly
so that I can finally be free from the chains of Gmail.
If Skiff doesn't work out, that's okay,
I can change email hosts
and not have to change my email address
in any of my accounts.
I can keep the same custom email.
But enough about Skiff,
let me show you how to get started with your custom email.
Start by going to Skiff.com and click start for free.
Here we need to create an at Skiff.com email address.
And I know we're trying to create
a custom email with a domain,
but this is something that you have to do
in order to get started with Skiff.
Now you're gonna create a password and click next.
It's then gonna give you a password recovery key,
and you have to click download key
in order to proceed to the next step.
And this is probably a good thing
because this key is the only way back into your account
if you ever were to lose your password,
so keep it in a safe area.
Now enter a recovery email,
and this is probably going to be something
like the Gmail address or whatever email you're coming from.
Click continue, and now we have the opportunity
to download the mobile app or desktop app and get credits.
But don't worry, you can actually skip this step,
and if you download them later
you will still get the 10 dollar credit.
So I'm gonna skip for now.
You can also turn on browser notifications if you want them.
Once again, I'm gonna skip for now.
Now we have the opportunity to create email aliases.
These are separate emails people can reach you at
to help keep your inbox organized and protect your identity.
And the cool thing about these aliases
is you can actually reply back through them
and send email from that address.
So it's not just an email forwarding service,
it almost functions like a separate inbox
but it still all funnels into your main inbox.
You can filter by aliases if you need to
but I've never seen anything like this,
you could actually create a dedicated alias
just for an account, receive mail at it for that service.
And if you're ever getting spammed by someone
and you can't unsubscribe from the list,
you can just cut off the email alias
and not deal with those emails anymore.
Since we are working on connecting a domain
I'm not gonna add any at Skiff.com email aliases
because we'll need to add aliases later
for our domain name specifically.
So I'm going to skip for now.
And now we have the opportunity
to finally connect our domain.
Skip gives you the option
of purchasing a domain name through them
and automatically setting it up.
And this sounds great on paper
but there are a few downsides.
First Skiff does not disclose the renewal price.
When you step through the wizard
everything says first year next to the price,
and they don't tell you what it's gonna cost to renew it.
I reached out to Skiff for clarification
and they said this is because they're a GoDaddy reseller,
and you know how I feel about GoDaddy,
and because of this,
GoDaddy could choose to raise the price at any time
and therefore your renewal price the following year
may be more expensive.
Now this is kind of just how it goes
in the world of domains,
registries can raise the price and every registrar
therefore can also need to raise the price.
But I really don't like GoDaddy
and they would be especially likely
to inflate the price year over year.
Also you have to reach out to Skiff support
if you wanna add additional DNS records
to point your domain to your website,
or if you ever wanna transfer your domain out from Skiff.
Hopefully Skiff will add better controls
for the in-house domains in the future,
as I really wanna like this automatic setup
but right now I would recommend
sticking to purchasing a domain somewhere else
and manually linking it with Skiff.
I'm gonna be using Porkbun to register my domain,
and CloudFlare to manage my DNS.
Once you've gone to Porkbun
or another registrar and registered your domain name,
go to cloudflare.com and sign up for a free account.
Enter an email address
and then select add a website or application.
Enter your domain name and click continue.
Then scroll down to the free plan and select the box,
I promise the free plan does exist,
you just need to look for it on the page.
After this you'll see an overview page.
Scroll down and take note of these two name servers
for your account.
Now you can click DNS in the sidebar.
We need to get the records from Skiff,
so go back, enter your domain and click next,
then copy the DNS records one by one into CloudFlare.
This is important,
when copying the C name records
you'll need to disable the CloudFlare proxy.
You can do this by flipping the switch
to off under proxy status.
After you do this, the CNM record should say DNS only.
If you accidentally leave the proxy on
the setup is going to fail
and you are going to get an error in Skiff,
so double check the setting.
When you're finished copying all of the records
click continue in Skiff.
Now you can copy both name servers
into the Porkbun dashboard
by clicking edit under authoritative name servers.
Submit it at Porkbun and click done.
And finally, check name servers at CloudFlare.
At this point your domain is in the verification stage
and may take a few hours for the DNS to propagate.
After a domain has finished verification
you can create a custom email address using your domain name
by going to settings, and organization,
and clicking your user.
Here we have this option for new email address
and it's at your domain.com.
I will just say hi at mydomain.com and click add.
And yes I'd like to add an alias.
Now in order to set this
as the primary email address on the Skiff account,
you want to go where it says aliases,
and click the three dots right here
next to your email, and click set default.
At this point, your custom email with Skiff is ready to use.
You can create custom aliases under your domain name
by going to settings and going to the alias screen.
And when you add an alias you can decide
whether it's at Skiff.com or at your domain.com.
In a way it's kind of like adding an entirely new inbox.
In fact I think this
is what Skiff might be doing in the background.
And this is another potential reason
why they're not able to support third party email clients
because how would aliases work?
Everything would just have to come to your main email.
But with aliases, having the segregation within your inbox
and being able to reply back through the alias
is so powerful.
And when you connect your custom domain
you can generate unlimited aliases on your domain name.
You're limited to five or 10 aliases,
something like that, for at Skiff.com email addresses,
but as long as you connect your domain
you can create as many as you want.
You could create an alias for each online account you have.
After getting familiar with Skiff,
it's a good idea to enable two factor authentication
to protect your account.
To do this, go to settings and security,
then click enable next to two factor authentication.
It's gonna ask for your password.
And now you have the option of enabling
app-based two-factor authentication
or pairing a security key.
Unfortunately if you do select the hardware security key
it gives you an error saying you have to enable
the app-based two factor authentication first.
And this is one of the biggest downsides to Skiff for me.
I always say that your account
is only as strong as its weakest link,
and I personally believe
that physical security keys are stronger
than app-based two factor authentication.
But because Skiff is forcing me
to set up app-based two FA to add my physical security key,
I feel like I may as well
not even bother with the security key.
I would love to see Skiff add the ability
to use a physical security key
as the only method of two-factor authentication
for your account,
and I also would love to see them add support for passkeys.
Since your primary email
is arguably the most important account to secure online,
this is why I'm so particular
about two-factor authentication and passkeys
and keeping the account locked down.
If someone were to get into your primary email,
they can start resetting your password
on a bunch of websites
and they have the reset password links
because they're in your email.
So I don't know about you
but I want Fort Knox security for my email.
Skiff offers a ton of value in their free plan.
The fact that you can get a no strings attached
custom email address hosted for free is nuts.
And Skiff is growing and evolving in real time.
I've watched them rapidly make changes and add new features
over the past year that I've been aware of their platform.
There's a handful of things that are missing
or don't work in Skiff,
such as support for HTML email signatures.
The auto forwarding from Gmail is also glitchy.
Sometimes I get emails forwarded almost immediately
and other times it takes quite a while.
I also don't like how the split view and the desktop app
cuts off the subject line of an email
if you stretch the email window to give it more room.
I personally like how Spark and other email clients do it
where you can see the subject line even
with the thin little sidebar
and you have more real estate for your email.
Where in the split view in Skiff
I feel like I have to give my emails half of the screen
and it just feels goofy.
But I know Skiff will continue to improve
and it shows with their commitment
to acting on user feedback on their candy page.
I'm so excited about what Skiff is doing
that I'm finally ditching my personal email address
and moving to a custom email hosted by Skiff.
I see a lot of benefits to this.
I'm finally taking away
a huge chunk of my personal data from Google.
And by migrating away from an at Gmail.com address
I retain full freedom over where my email is hosted
until the end of time, and that feels great.
When I'm done going through the painful,
probably years long process of updating my email address
across hundreds of accounts, I'll never have to do it again.
Even if Skiff were to go out of business,
or I decided I just didn't like them,
I can change hosts on the backend
while retaining my custom email address.
This is because I control the domain.
So I'll never have to change from at AOL.com
to at Yahoo.com and then 10 years later
change from at Yahoo.com to at Gmail.com.
I can switch web hosts and never update my email address
on a single account again.
It's also great that I can represent myself
with my own custom domain name in my personal email address.
There's so many options when it comes to domains
and I've done a ton of research to find the most affordable
feature rich places to buy a domain name.
I have an entire video comparing
the top domain registrars that you can check out here.