TOPIC:

In an earlier post (closed now I see) SteveTheTechie said:

We only support emails forwarded to a FTH email address for a few email agents.
(MS Outlook/Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo)

The reason is that forwarded emails look very similar to blind carbon copies, which we absolutely do not permit as a spam prevention measure.

We can only detect that an email was forwarded (vs blind carbon copy) if it contains a X-Forward-To or Resent-To email header.

Additionally, the system defines certain system provided email addresses as "publicly accessible" and others that can only be accessed by members or officers. Generally speaking, the contact email address (if enabled), the officer email addresses, and the admin email addresses are publicly accessible.

I would suggest the following:
1. Create a dummy email address with a free email provider that provides forwarding that we can detect. Set up a forwarding rule there that forwards to the address you want.
2. Use that address to create a dummy member in Membership Management with a made up name, etc.
3. Create a custom group with just the dummy member.
4. Make single member custom groups public in Email and Contact Forms. This results in an email address with the left side that you want and keeps the right side after the @ sign.

Steve, I don't understand what you're saying with steps 2-4 or why. "The address I want" in step 1 is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (or really anything at all inside FTH at this point), so I don't understand why I'd create a dummy member with a FTH-provided address.

The point about only understanding how to forward email from certain providers made sense, though. So I created a Gmail address, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I made my vanity domain address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. forward to it. Then the Gmail account immediately forwards that to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., but I'm still receiving the same "Your message has not been delivered" message as before. Clearly I'm not understanding something important here.

I would think that somewhere close to 50% of clubs must have their own domains, and that some high percentage of them are doing exactly what I'm trying to do here. I'm frustrated that I can't figure out how to do it, nor make sufficient sense of y'all's prompt and detailed explanations.

If anyone could work up the energy and patience to lay out for me a (even more) clear set of (even more) specific instructions for how I can accomplish this task that seemed like a simple thing a few weeks ago, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Carl

Thanks for clarifying what you are trying to accomplish. Now that you have done that, this is much easier.

The problem has been that you have been using the term "forwarding" in a way that is confusing.

Given what you are telling me, the gmail account is unnecessary, but you can still use it as your club archive email account (see Email and Contact Forms module).

What you need to do is to configure your DNS settings for your custom domain for email. I looked your DNS settings and you only have an A record set up. If you set up an MX record and another A record for mail.pittsborotoastmasters.org that points to our server, I think you should fine that you should find that This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. works just fine. This is not really forwarding in a strict sense, this is configuring your custom domain to allow you to use it for email.

Please see the following doc for more details:
support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/dns-settings-overview