In the previous guide in our using email series we covered How to Log into Webmail. If you want to use a different mail server than Web Hosting Hub but still want to use our hosting for your website, all you need to do is change the MX Records to point your email to a different server.  These changes will allow you to still host your website content with us, but your email at a third party server. Please note, if you are using a third party filtering service for emails, please see our article on Setting Up MX Records When Using a Third Party Email Filtering Service.

Obtain your MX Records

First you will need to obtain the MX records from your third party email server to make sure that emails reach them properly.  If you are not sure which MX records to use, please contact your email provider. Many times they wil be listed online, in the case here of Google:

Priority - Mail Server
1 - ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
5 - ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
5 - ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
10 - ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM
10 - ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM

Listed above for example are the MX records you'll use if setting up Google Apps.

Modify your domain's MX Records

You can change your MX records in your account cPanel.  Once you are logged into your cPanel, click the "MX Entry" icon under the "Mail" subheading.

In this example, we will point our MX records to the Google Apps records listed above.  First, to stop the current email from working, remove any current MX records that are in place. You can do this by clicking "Delete" next to each record listed under "MX Records."

Important! If you still need to receive your email on our server while the Google MX records are propagating, DO NOT remove the original MX record. Update the original MX record to priority 100 to prevent email from bouncing, instead of removing the 0 priority MX record. Once the Google MX records are propagated, you can then remove the original MX record.

Then, under the "Add New Record" section, enter 1 as the "Priority," enter ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM as the "Destination," and then click "Add New Record." Follow these steps for each of the MX records listed. If given more than one MX record, all of them need to be listed.

After you have added all of your MX records, select "Automatically Detect Configuration" under the "Email Routing" section, and then click "Change."

Changes to MX records can take up to 24 hours to take full effect, so you may have to wait up to a day for the connection to the new server to be complete.  Changes made in the MX Records will affect all email accounts for that domain, so make sure that any email addresses that you have added to your cPanel have also been added in your third party email server. In the next guide we will show you how to create an autoresponder in your cPanel.