How to Point Your Email to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 While Keeping Your Website on ZIPROF

You can use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for your business email and keep your website running on ZIPROF hosting at the same time. Your domain's DNS records control email and website separately, so you only need to change the records that handle mail, not the ones pointing to your website.

Do not change your domain's nameservers to Google's or Microsoft's nameservers. That would move DNS management for your whole domain away from ZIPROF, which can take your website offline. Instead, edit individual DNS records while keeping your existing nameservers.

Before you start

1. Sign up for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 and add your domain during setup.
2. Google or Microsoft will show you a list of DNS records to add: usually one or more MX records, a TXT record for SPF, and sometimes a CNAME or TXT record to verify you own the domain. Keep that list open in another tab so you can copy the exact values into your DNS zone.

Update your DNS records

In cPanel

1. Log in to cPanel and open Zone Editor under the Domains section.
2. Click Manage next to your domain.
3. Remove or edit any existing MX records for the domain so only the mail provider's MX records remain, matching the priority values it gave you.
4. Click Add Record and choose the correct type (TXT or CNAME) to add the domain verification record, pasting in the exact value from your provider.
5. Add the SPF TXT record it supplied. If a TXT record starting with "v=spf1" already exists, edit that one instead of creating a second one, since a domain should only have one SPF record.
6. Save each record.

In DirectAdmin

1. Log in to DirectAdmin and open DNS Management (sometimes listed as DNS Administration) for your domain.
2. Delete any existing MX records pointing to ZIPROF's mail servers, then add the new MX record(s) and priority values your provider gave you.
3. Add the domain verification record using the record type (TXT or CNAME) your provider specifies, with the value it gave you.
4. Add or update the SPF TXT record ("v=spf1..."). Edit an existing SPF TXT record rather than adding a duplicate.
5. Click Save to apply the changes.

What happens to your existing ZIPROF email addresses

Once the MX records point to Google or Microsoft, new mail for your domain stops arriving in your old ZIPROF mailboxes and goes to the new provider instead. Recreate any mailboxes you need inside Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 before switching, so you don't lose incoming mail during the change. Your website, files, and databases are unaffected, since they don't depend on the MX records.

DNS changes like these can take a few hours to take effect everywhere, occasionally longer. Avoid deleting the old mail records until you've confirmed mail is flowing correctly through the new provider.

For background on individual record types and how long changes take to spread across the internet, see how to add or edit DNS records.