Free Email for Your Squarespace Domain, Step by Step

Squarespace lets you edit DNS in its domains dashboard only for some domains. Its help page lists four cases:

Former Google Domains customers: Squarespace took over all Google Domains registrations on 7 September 2023. If you never had a Squarespace account, one was created with your Google Domains email address; sign in at squarespace.com/login with Continue with Google. If you only just bought the domain and are unsure what it needs, start with I bought a domain, how do I get email on it?

Do this first so mailboxes exist before mail starts arriving, and so you can copy the exact values.

A domain can send incoming mail to one place only, so old mail records must go before the new ones work. Check the DNS Settings page for these:

• Squarespace email forwarding. Squarespace offers free forwarding (up to 100 aliases) and adds its own MX, TXT and DMARC records in an Email forwarding section. Squarespace says those records cannot be removed while a forwarding rule is active, so delete the forwarding rules first. Forwarding stops when you do, so recreate those addresses as Mailbux mailboxes in Step 1. Moving from forwarding to a real mailbox has the full checklist.
• A Google Workspace or Titan preset. If you signed up for either through Squarespace, it added their MX records for you. Delete them only if you are leaving that service; if you still pay for it, cancel it separately.
• Old Google Domains forwarding. Squarespace says Google's built-in email forwarding can stop working after the move on domains with custom nameservers. Remove any leftover forwarding MX rows.

Squarespace's own warning: if you sign in to Squarespace with an email address at the domain you are changing, change your Squarespace account email first. Otherwise you can miss password-reset and verification emails while mail moves.

Squarespace has one-click MX presets for a few providers. Mailbux is added as a custom record, which takes about a minute.

SPF tells other mail servers that Mailbux may send mail for your domain. Squarespace handles SPF differently from most DNS hosts: it says to add each SPF record as its own custom record and it merges them into one. So if another service (for example a newsletter tool) already has an SPF record, you add ours as a separate record instead of editing theirs.

DKIM is optional and improves deliverability. Copy the DKIM TXT record shown in Domains → Open DNS setup and add it in Squarespace as a TXT custom record, using the name Mailbux shows. One DKIM record is enough.

DMARC is also optional. Squarespace allows only one DMARC record per domain and adds one itself when you create an email forwarding rule. If a _dmarc record is already there, keep one record and merge values rather than adding a second.

• Slow first changes. Squarespace says record changes can take 24 to 48 hours, and custom records have a 4-hour TTL by default. Most changes show sooner, but do not panic after one hour.
• "Custom records not saved" when adding SPF. Squarespace's fix is to delete the current SPF records and add them again.
• Quotation marks in SPF. Depending on the nameservers, quotes in the Text field can stop the record from resolving. Leave them out.
• Editing in the wrong place. With DNS Connect, records you add in Squarespace do nothing; edit them at the domain provider.
• Forwarding and a mailbox together. Squarespace's forwarding is only available for domains without a custom email address, so it cannot run next to Mailbux on the same domain. Inside Mailbux you can still forward a mailbox under Manage → Forwarders.
• Website records. Leave the Squarespace defaults (A and CNAME records for the site) alone. Email only needs the MX and SPF records above; email without changing nameservers explains why the site is not affected.

1. Run nslookup -type=MX yourdomain.com and nslookup -type=TXT yourdomain.com (or dig). You should see my.mailbux.com and one v=spf1 record that includes msg25.com.
2. In Mailbux, Domains → Open DNS setup checks the records automatically; choose Re-check now after editing.
3. Send a message from a personal address to your new mailbox, then reply from Mailbux webmail. The reply's headers should show spf=pass.

Sources: Squarespace Help Center, "Edit your domain's DNS records", "Add DNS records for email", "Email forwarding with a Squarespace domain", "Choose an email provider for your Squarespace domain" and "About the Google Domains migration to Squarespace" (support.squarespace.com), checked 10 November 2026.

The Mailbux Free plan is free forever: 7 GB of shared storage, 1 domain, webmail, the Mailbux apps and SMTP sending, and outgoing mail carries a small "Sent via Mailbux" footer. The Free plan includes up to 7 business mailboxes.

Standard IMAP and POP3 access for clients like Outlook or Apple Mail is available on paid plans, so on Free you read and send mail in Mailbux webmail and the Mailbux apps. Setting up several people? See free business email for a small team. For the wider picture, read our guide to a free business email account, and compare plans on the pricing page.