Set up email forwarding with a static website hosted on AWS S3 and custom domain from Google Domains

Will Doenlen
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

So, here’s the situation: you have a great idea for a new static website. You buy a new domain on Google Domains, and after some development work you upload your new site to Amazon AWS S3. You setup Route 53 to handle your custom domain but when you switch to Amazon’s nameservers you see this warning:

Bummer. You were hoping to use the free email forwarding that comes when you purchase a domain on Google Domains so that you could have a contact email on your website. You look up how to set up email forwarding on AWS but only find cumbersome solutions involving SES (Simple Email Service), S3 and AWS Lambda. What was once free and out of the box is now going to take quite a bit longer to setup.

Fortunately, there’s a much easier way. That warning sounds like email forwarding won’t work but it actually does. If you’ve already setup email forwarding on Google Domains then you’ll have a set of MX records under the “Email Forwarding” tab.

If you copy these MX records into Route 53 then you can continue to use Google Domains’s free email forwarding without a problem. In your hosted zone in Route 53, click “Create Record Set” and then copy/paste the values in the “data” column from the email forwarding tab in Google Domains. Click “Create” and you’re done!

If you bought your domain from a registrar that doesn’t include email forwarding you can do the same thing with an email forwarding service like improvmx.com or forwardmx.io. All you have to do is sign up for the service and copy their MX records into Route 53.

)

Written by

Artist and technologist living in New York. https://williardx.com

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade