Can you send it to Gmail? Causes and solutions that occur when sending emails from a unique domain acquired in SHOPIFY

If you operate the site in SHOPIFY, you often transfer site domain mail to another email address in cooperation with external services. At that time, have you ever experienced an email to gmail (@gmail.com) a transmission error? If you do not send important emails for purchasing such as payment, you will receive a complaint. Even if you try to solve it, it is difficult to find the cause because it was possible to send it with the same settings before.

Actually, these causes are likely to be in the domain setting, but I think that there are no people who are familiar with domains in the company.

This time, we will introduce the causes and solutions when the email to Gmail suddenly becomes unable to send an email to Gmail in SHOPIFY operation. It is a niche content, but I hope it will be helpful for someone in need.

First, let's check the SHOPIFY email system.

When opening a site in SHOPIFY, the domain must be purchased at an external company such as your name.com or at SHOPIFY.

Of course, it is possible to operate the site with the domain purchased at SHOPIFY, but this domain has no email hosting service. In other words, it is not possible to send an email of the domain e -mail address purchased at Shopify as a source.

reference:Shopify email hosting

However, there are exceptions, and e -mails that can be operated from the management screen can be distributed from the domain acquired by SHOPIFY. So you can send notification emails such as order confirmation and individual emails that can be sent from customer management without any problems.

So how do you send an e -mail address of the domain purchased at Shopify as a source?

There are two methods. The first is to connect Zoho Mail or Google Workspace to the domain. The second is to use an external mail hosting service.

Connect to Zoho Mail or Google Workspace

SHOPIFY official websiteThe connection method is introduced. However, if you have never used these two functions, or if you have already used other mail services, it may be difficult to introduce them.

Use external mail hosting services

This method is more common. You can get an external email address and operate the email as a source.

At this time, the following will be different, but by using the mail transfer service of SHOPIFY, you can set the original domain obtained by SHOPIFY under the address to the store's address while using the external address.

In other words, even if you send it with an external address, the receiving side can display the email from the domain name obtained by SHOPIFY.

However, be aware that if the receiver reply to the transferred email, it can only be sent to an external address, not to its own domain.

reference:Mail transfer settings acquired by SHOPIFY

As described above, by transferring to an external e -mail address, you can send it with the domain name obtained in SHOPIFY.

This is related to Gmail security. By transferring as described above, you can send it with the domain name obtained by SHOPIFY. This means that the address displayed by the user and the actual sent address are different. To put it worse, even if you send it with a dangerous address, you can deceive by changing the display on the user.

To prevent spoofing, Gmail is checking whether the transfer source and the transferred address are relevant.

If it is evaluated as no relevance, a transmission error will occur. This is why you can't send it to Gmail.

The trouble is that this security check is suddenly implemented. At the beginning of the launch, you can not check it and you can send an email as usual, and one day you suddenly check it and cause an event that cannot be transmitted may occur.

So what do this security check confirm and judge? It is related to the SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record that can be specified in the domain.

In order to check the relevance of the transfer source and the proprietary domain in the SPF record, it is necessary to authenticate the transfer source SPF record to the original domain obtained by SHOPIFY.

What is SPF record?

When using a service outside the domain, describe the DNS settings to confirm that you own your own domain on the TXT record. Among the TXT records, the description for authenticating the email address is the SPF record.

Check that the SPF of the email to be sent is authenticated

If you do not receive the email to Gmail, make sure that the sending email has been authenticated.

You can check the source from the email that can be received.

If you check the SPF item, it is "SoftFail". This means that it is not authenticated.

If it is authenticated, it will be displayed as "PASS".

How to write SPF records

Make sure you need to write what kind of SPF code you need to authenticate.

The SPF record starts with "V = SPF1" and can be described:

v = SPF1 IP4: xxx.xxx.xx.x.X: yyy.yy.yy.y ~ all

v = SPF1 INCLUDE: XXX.jp INCLUDE: yyy.yyy.jp ~ all

Since only one description of "V = SPF1" in SPF is set, if there are two as described above, summarize as follows.

v = SPF1 IP4: xxx.xx.xx.x.x IP4: yyy.YYY.Y.Y.Y Include: xxx.jp INCLUDE: yyy.yyy.jp ~ all

* Please note that each element is separated by half -width space.

You must obtain a SPF record from the source domain company to authenticate. It is good if it can be obtained in the format of "V = SPF1", but it may be shared only by IP4 as IP4: xxx.xxx.xx.x. In such a case, create a SPF record according to the description method described above.

If you create it yourself but are not really confident that this is right, you can check it on the following site.

SPF Record Testing Tools

In the section "Is this spf record valid -syNtactically color" on this site, enter your own domain and the created SPF record. Click "CHECK SPF RECORD" to see if the description of the created SPF record is fine.

As described in the next section, it is recommended to check in advance, as it will take more than half a day to reflect even if you set it.

In Shopify, describe it in the domain setting

Let's write the prepared SPF record in the domain acquired by SHOPIFY.

Configuring the management screen> Domain> Domain Settings> Edit DNS Settings on the upper right.

Write in the TXT Record column at the bottom.

Write "@" on the name and add "V = SPF1 ..." prepared for TXT Value. The setting is now complete.

It takes half a day to one day to reflect.

I think it was surprisingly easy to set, but is it really set? I can't wait for half a day! Some people think that.

For such people, we will introduce an external site that can check if the SPF setting has been set.

Mxtoolbox

This site allows you to read a variety of information set in the domain simply by filling out your own domain. If you select "SPF Record Lookup", you can check the set SPF.

Check if the SPF of the sent email is PASS

When the setting is completed, send it again to see if the SPF is PASS from the email source display. If it is PASS, you should be able to send it to Gmail safely!

Note: When notifying from the external system, add SPF to Shopify and external mail server

For example, if an external system is introduced for payment, you may send a notification to users from an external system.

External system> External mail server> SHOPIFY proprietary domain> user

In the case of the above, the external mail server must set an external system SPF record, and the SHOPIFY proprietary domain must be set for an external system and an external mail server SPF record.

The reason why it cannot be sent to gmail (@gmail.com) is a security issue for preventing spoofing, and it has been found that it can be solved by setting a SPF record. The setting itself is easy, but it takes time to understand that the term for domain comes out.

Not only the domain acquired by SHOPIFY, we have a wealth of knowledge and experience of SHOPIFY. Feel free to have any problemsHerePlease contact us.

Until the end Thank you for reading!