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Comment by apohn | Hacker News Reader

Something I just discovered is that Office 365 Family only lets you use custom domains if they are hosted by GoDaddy. If you want to use another domain registrar you have to get Microsoft 365 Business, which has a similar price as Google Workspace :(

There's no way I'm moving my domain to GoDaddy.

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There are reddit posts showing how to bypass the Godaddy requirement. I used them to setup Office 365 for my family.

I have since moved the family emails to icloud mail since we already pay for icloud+ and I get multiple domain support, and aliases.

Those Reddit posts are two years old.

I have considered moving to iCloud as well. How do you find the UX? It has been a decade+ since I used the Mail app but I don’t have fond memories.

I find it cumbersome. I have a custom domain on iCloud and it's terrible for checking the mail from web browser (which I need to do whilst at work).

Not only that. the 2FA requirement is particularly bad. You cannot use 2FA apps (such as authenticator.cc / bitwarden / 1password); the requirement is having an apple device that you have physically signed in on before to be able to allow you to log in. Every single time. Even if you save the cookies.

I absolutely hate Google and Apple’s 2FA of verifying with a diff device. So annoying.

I don’t need to check mail by web browser though. So maybe I’ll do it.

If I was starting off afresh I certainly wouldn't do that.

All it takes is for some partnership manager who deals with the GoDaddy rep to get enough pressure put on them about this for the workarounds to become impossible within a few weeks.

And unlike most other things, this being unofficial, there need not even be an announcement with a few weeks to months of transition time. You'll just wake up overnight and it's not working.

While purely anecdotal, mine's been working for over two years using a .tl tld.

Interesting. I didn't realise Apple supported multiple domains. That must have happened after I moved away. I actually went the other way from Apple to Microsoft. I run a Linux laptop and iPhone, and the kids run all Apple kit. I've found the Linux support for MS better than for Apple (Evolution for email and calendar; OneDrive for live home directory sync across devices; and I use Firefox for password synchronisation). I tried to find a way to use iCloud storage for file sync with Linux but found nothing.

>> aliases

Can you wildcard aliases with your domain?

It's a dollar cheaper AND you get the full suite of Office applications to use please more space (1TB). O365 Business Basic is a better deal.

Just use iCloud. It allows you to setup custom domains no worries and give emails to everyone who’s included into your family plan. I’ve got two custom domains setup that I share with my wife.

Alternatively you can use Fastmail but I recentely moved from it to iCloud for consolidation purposes. Don’t get me wrong, Fastmail is absolutely awesome and I had great experience, I just wanted to consolidate.

Don't have any apple devices, not sure if i even can.

For you it is Fastmail then, they are awesome and integrate with 1Password for an-email-per-service thing (known as Hide My Email in Apple's world)

Looks like only one domain can be connected on this

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