Using Google Apps, you can now set up your MX records to use you@yourdomain.com directly in Gmail. This isn’t using POP to get your mail but telling mail that goes to your domain to basically use Google’s servers as your personal mail servers. Please note, this is NOT a regular Gmail account, but an email account (a domain even) that’s using Google Apps.

Fill Out The Online Application

If you are a family, private user or non-profit organisation, Google Apps is free to use (businesses can have a trial period and then $50 per year per person). But for me and probably for most of you, the free “standard edition” is the one to go for. Go to Google Apps for Businesses and fill out the application.

Other Google Apps editions:

Standard
Education
Non-profits
Government

To sign up for Google Apps, enter your organization's domain name

What is a domain name? Usually it is the identifier associated with your organization's email address (like @ example.com). The domain you provide will be used for all your Google services. For example, if you choose example.com or mail.example.com, you will be able to create user accounts for john@example.com or jane@mail.example.com.

Don't have a domain name? Click "I want to buy a domain name" to get one.

The first step of the application is to enter your domain name that you bought from Hostcow Web Hosting. You also need to verify that you own the domain or if you are a member of the domain.

Then click “get started” and a standard application form pops up. Fill it out.

Google will then ask you to either upload an HTML file to your web hosting account (Recommended by Google) or Change the CNAME Record for your domain. Hostcow recommend the HTML upload method.

Click on Continue once you selected "Upload an HTML file to yourdomain.co.za

Create a HTML verification file named googlehostedservice.html , copy the text specified below into it, and upload it to http://boonex.co.za/

googleffffffffa5a2ebf8

How to create this HTML file - Go to your desktop right click anywhere (not on the icons) Select "NEW" "TEXT DOCUMENT"

copy and paste the code googleffffffffa5a2ebf8 inside the document

Click on "File" "Save As" and save the document as googlehostedservice.html on your desktop.

The next step would be to login to your Control Panel (CPANEL HOSTING ACCOUNT) http://www.yourdomain.co.za/cpanel Type your Username and Password you received from us "Hosting Account Welcome Email"

Once logged into your cPanel account go to "File Manager"

Select "Web Root" and click on go

File Manager will then go and open up location /public_html which is the same as http://www.yourdomain.co.za/

The next thing you want to do is to click on the "Upload" icon, click on browse and select the googlehostedservice.html file on your desktop. File Manager will then automatically start the upload process for you.

You will see googlehostedservice.html: 571 Bytes: 100% Complete you may close this window.

Go back to Google Apps page and click on "I've completed the steps above"

Once these steps are confirmed the page will go to "Google Apps Setup Guide" Click on Dashboard

Assuming all of the information is acceptable to Google and you are authorized to set the domain up on Google Apps, you will then be taken to your new dashboard.

Click on "Email"

The first thing to do is activate your email. You need to specify whether you like the URL Google automatically makes for you. So for example it may have made:

http://mail.googleapps.yourdomain.co.za

But if you don’t like that URL, you can easily change it to something secret such as :

http://mysecretmailbox.yourdomain.com

Now to activate the email. Go to the email settings page and there are two options – “General” and “Email Addresses”.

Here you can change the General setting of the account or Disable the service.

Users and Groups

Create New Users and Groups here

You can create up to 50 user accounts for this domain. If you would like more users, please purchase Google Apps Premier Edition.

How to activate email

To activate Google Apps mail service, follow the instructions below.

1. Create user accounts

If you don't currently have an email service for your domain, you can create user accounts at anytime before or after configuring your MX records. If your domain already has email addresses, you should create user accounts before changing your MX records. To avoid disruption in email service, be sure to create the same set of user accounts and email lists in Google Apps.
* Create user accounts
* Upload a list of users

You can always create more users later lets move on to the MX Records and DNS Setting to make it all work.

2. Set up email delivery

To receive mail in your Google Apps email accounts, you must change the MX records in your DNS settings. This routes incoming mail to Google. Once your MX records have been configured for Google's servers, mail will no longer be delivered to your previous email service. If you're not ready to change your MX records yet, you can test the email service with a temporary email address. Once you verify that you own this domain, a temporary email address will be assigned to each user account. The temporary email address will be deactivated shortly after you change the MX records. Learn more
* Change MX records

Move on to the next section ----

How to Change MX Records on cPanel

Click on the icon that say "MX Entry"

Delete any existing MX records before entering new MX records.

Create these 2 entries

0	aspmx.l.google.com
10	alt1.aspmx.l.google.com

Send Hostcow a ticket to update the DNS Zone file, we will reply to your ticket to confirm the status.

Once you received the confirmation email that the Zone File was created you may go ahead and confirm that you've changed the MX Entries on the "Google Apps Page" - Google will now say - We are checking MX records for your domain. This may take 48 hours to complete.