How to Use Gmail with Your Business Email (Custom Domain)

The three ways Gmail can work with another address

Historically Gmail offered three connected features. It helps to understand them separately because they are affected differently by Google’s changes:

• “Check mail from other accounts” — Gmail on the web fetched mail from another mailbox over POP3 and put it in your Gmail inbox.
• Gmailify — linked certain third-party accounts so they got Gmail’s spam filtering and categories.
• “Send mail as” — lets you send from your business address inside Gmail, through your provider’s SMTP server.
• Separately, the Gmail mobile apps can connect directly to any IMAP account, which does not rely on the web fetching features at all.

What Google has changed

Google has announced that it is retiring Gmailify and POP-based fetching from other accounts in Gmail on the web, rolling the change out from early 2026. If you set up “Check mail from other accounts” years ago, it may already have stopped pulling new mail, or may stop soon. Check Google’s Gmail Help Center for the current status in your account rather than relying on old tutorials.

It was never a great setup for business use anyway: POP fetching ran on a delay of anything from a few minutes to an hour, it copied mail rather than syncing it, and it put your work mail inside a personal Google account your business does not control.

Recommended: add your mailbox to the Gmail app over IMAP

On Android and iPhone, the Gmail app can add your business mailbox directly as an IMAP account. Mail syncs in near real time, read status matches webmail and your other devices, and nothing depends on the desktop fetch feature.

• In the Gmail app tap your profile picture → Add another account → Other.
• Enter your business email address and choose Manual setup → Personal (IMAP).
• Incoming server: mail.havitomail.com, SSL/TLS, port 993; username is your full address.
• Outgoing server: mail.havitomail.com, SSL/TLS on port 465 (or STARTTLS on 587), sign-in required.
• Switch between your personal and business inboxes from the account menu.

Setting up “Send mail as” on Gmail web

If you still want to reply from your business address while working in Gmail on a computer, “Send mail as” lets you do that. It sends through your provider’s SMTP server, so the message is signed with your domain’s DKIM and passes SPF and DMARC.

• In Gmail on the web open Settings (gear) → See all settings → Accounts and Import.
• Under “Send mail as”, click Add another email address.
• Enter your name and business address. Leave “Treat as an alias” ticked unless you want replies handled differently. Click Next Step.
• SMTP Server: mail.havitomail.com; Port: 465 with “Secured connection using SSL”, or 587 with TLS. Username: your full business address; Password: your mailbox password.
• Click Add Account. Gmail emails a confirmation code to your business address — open it in your business webmail and enter the code.
• Optionally set the business address as default, and choose “Reply from the same address the message was sent to”.

Why not just forward everything to Gmail?

Forwarding all business mail to a personal Gmail address is tempting but causes problems. Forwarded messages can fail SPF checks at Gmail and get filtered, your business loses control of the mail when someone leaves, and customer data ends up in personal accounts. Keeping the mailbox on your domain and reading it with IMAP avoids all of that. On HavitoMail, aliases deliver into mailboxes on your own domains rather than forwarding out to external addresses.

A practical setup for most people

• Phone: Gmail app (or any mail app) with your business account added over IMAP.
• Computer: your provider’s webmail in a browser tab, or a desktop client such as Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird.
• If you must stay in Gmail web: “Send mail as” for replying, plus the business mailbox open in webmail for reading — rather than relying on POP fetching.
• Make sure SPF, DKIM and DMARC are set up for your domain so mail sent from any of these places is authenticated.