Family email address: principles, advantages and configuration

Creating your own family email address is child's play, even without computer knowledge. You just need to have a personal domain anda little time to set up custom messaging for desired family members.

Why is having a family email address useful?

Many families take advantage of the possibility of sharing email boxes via their trusted email service. Through individual folder structures and tailored filtering rules, incoming messages are sorted, giving each family member their own digital communication space. While this approach to a shared family email address involves some management effort, it remains the only smart way to use an address such as prénom@nomdefamille.fr.

The most sensible solution is therefore to create individual family email addresses for all family members. If you create an email address with your own domain for this, you have the freedom to choose the name and you benefit from many exclusive advantages. You do not need technical knowledge or your own hardware as is the case, for example, when operating your own mail server. As a rule, only a few installation steps are necessary in the customer account of your mail service provider.

What are the benefits of having a personal email address?

Having your own domain or email address allows you to provide a private mailbox for the whole family. It is not just a practical and easy to implement solution : having your own address also presents various advantages compared to email accounts of regular email services:

• Availability on all devices: With support for the IMAP network protocol, you can view messages sent to your own address anywhere, anytime, from any device.
• Ad-free messaging: Personal domain-based addresses are inexpensive. You can usually count on your mailboxes to have little or no advertising, making for a cleaner user experience.
• Maximum protection against spam and others: If you opt for your own family domain, you benefit from the extremely effective security mechanisms of professional providers, which are significantly superior to the defense measures of basic solutions.
• Archiving in accordance with legislation: Many providers offer an email archiving option that allows you to keep all your messages legally and securely stored.
• More individuality: With family email addresses that identify each family member by their first and last name, you can easily stand out from the crowd. So, you can also use this address for professional exchanges.

Creating personalized addresses for each family member only takes a few minutes. The exact steps may vary from provider to provider, but the basic procedure generally remains similar. The basic setup steps are:

1. Choose a domain: You must first register a domain name that corresponds well to your family. This is the part located after the sign @. A possible option would be nomdefamille.frwhich would allow you to set up family email addresses on the template prénom@nomdefamille.com.
2. Find the right rate: Providers offer different packages for managing e-mail boxes. Look for a suitable option that offers enough storage space and reserve the desired number of e-mail boxes so that you can set up addresses for all members of your family.
3. Set up family email addresses: When you have found the right domain and space/mailbox package, you can create the desired email addresses (including passwords) via your provider's customer account. In addition, it is often possible to configure additional settings such as setting up a spam filter or email forwarding.

With IONOS you can of course also create tailor-made family email addresses: you benefit from all the important elementsfrom domain to tailored email packages with 2 gigabytes or more of storage space, a spam filter and 24/7 expert support.

Below we have summarized for you the different stages of the setting up a family email address at IONOS.

Step 1: Register the domain

The basis for your family email address is to have your own domain. You can initially purchase this either directly as part of an IONOS Email package or through another provider.

The Domain Checker tool helps you to check the availability of the domain of your choice. If your first choice is occupied, the tool automatically suggests alternatives – for example with other top-level domains.

Step 2: Log in to the customer account and choose the Email package

Once you have your own domain, you can start setting up your family email address. To do this, first go to the IONOS Cloud Panel login page And Log in with your customer data.

Then select the category dedicated to emails, then the desired Email pack, for example “Email Basic”.

Step 3: Create a family email address

You now have your own domain, as well as the email package of your choice. Now click on  » Create a new email address » and select the desired contract again. Now fill in the input fields presented:

• E-mail : part of the family email address that is before the sign @
• @ : selection of the desired domain
• Password : password for email address

Optionally, you can also add up to ten forwarding destinations for incoming messages by pressing “ Add a transfer destination » and entering the corresponding addresses. You can also add paid security services for antivirus protection and email archiving.

Finally, press the button “ Save » to configure the new mailbox.

Step 4: Add more addresses

You will receive a success message once the email account has been set up. Click on the “ Create another email address » to continue setting up the address for the next family member.

If you wish, you can of course purchase further domains at any time to create further personal email addresses, for example for business purposes.