WordPress.com

1. tmccormick
   Member
   Oct 19, 2012, 9:46 AM

   I've just configured my WordPress.com blog to appear at my personal domain, tjm.org.

   I receive email at that domain, and I wish to forward this mail to my personal Gmail account, as I had been doing at my former web host, Dreamhost.

   I've read documentation (http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/add-email, etc) and forums, but all I can find is directions to set up Google Apps, but I don't use GApps or wish to if possible.

   Is it possible to redirect to Gmail, or if so why not and what else can I do to achieve the goal?

   This seems like it would be a fairly common issue, sorry I couldn't find anything specifically anwering it.
   thanks, Tim.

   -----
   Tim McCormick
   @tjmccormick | tjm.org | Palo Alto, CA

   The blog I need help with is tjm.org.

2. viper007bond
   Staff
   Oct 20, 2012, 2:11 AM

   Hi Tim,

   It's not possible from a technical standpoint for a @gmail.com e-mail address to handle the e-mail for a domain name.

   However you can continue to forward your e-mail to your @gmail.com e-mail address, much as you did with Dreamhost.

   After setting up Google Apps for your domain name, go into the inbox for your new @tjm.org e-mail address and set up forwarding. Instructions for that can be found here:

   http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10957

   If you have multiple @tjm.org e-mail addresses and want them to all forward to your @gmail.com e-mail address but don't want to go through and set up forwarding for each one individually, then Google Apps has a catch-all forwarding ability, meaning that e-mail sent to [email redacted] will get forwarded.

   Instructions for that can be found here:

   http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33962

   Hope that helps!

3. tmccormick
   Member
   Oct 23, 2012, 10:47 AM

   > It's not possible from a technical standpoint for a @gmail.com
   > e-mail address to handle the e-mail for a domain name.

   > However you can continue to forward your e-mail to your
   > @gmail.com e-mail address, much as you did with Dreamhost.

   I think what you're saying is there's an email-handling component needed to do email forwarding, which WordPress.com does not do. I wonder why, if Dreamhost can do it with so little problem, WordPress doesn't offer the feature? It would seem to be rather helpful in trying to move a blog to WordPress.com; by comparison, pushing people to Google Apps requires additional signup and complexity, and just seems a bit strange to me, unless it's a marketing arrangement.

   To be honest, effecting the change of moving my blog from Dreamhost to WordPress.com has turned out rather more complicated and difficult than I would have imagined. I'm now in limbo trying to straighten out some issue preventing the setup of Google Apps for my domain (looks like some service in the past put down my domain as an alternate), and meanwhile email to addresses at my domain appear to be silently disappearing. That is a costly problem, not knowing who has emailed me what. Additionally, I'm finding that many of the images in my blog posts going back years are appearing broken since I ported the blog; I haven't yet figured out why, and it would have helped if the import tool had perhaps noted any such link breakages.

   I would advise anyone to think twice before trying to move a blog to WordPress, and do as much as possible (e.g. Google Apps setup) before
   actually needing to move, and beware of losing email forwarding for some time in transition.

4. tmccormick
   Member
   Oct 25, 2012, 5:48 AM

   ok, this is turning into a disaster. Cannot get Google Apps set up.. I am in limbo trying to get ownership verified after apparently some other party put down my domain as an alternate. Followed their instructions, nothing has happened, no response after 3 1/2 days.

   My email at my domain tjm.org has been broken for all this time due to this effort of trying to shift onto WordPress.com. I am reversing path and changing nameservers to restore service back to my former host Dreamhost.
   Total mess and major disruption.

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