DarthMuffin

It took some trial and error, but I finally got my Droid using my email address rather than a gmail one, and I'm still able to use all Outlook functions and have it sync seamlessly. I don't even *have* a gmail account! Here's what you need to do.

1. Buy a domain name of your choice (pebkac.us in my case). There are lots of registrars, but I recommend godaddy as cheap and easy (don't fall for any of the "upsells", just by the basic domain). I bought one years ago because I was tired of ISPs getting bought or and sold or moving and changing my address. For quite a while I hosted the mail myself on a home server, but then I found:

2. Google apps. Business email, calendar, documents, and intranet sites for your company - Google Apps for Business Use this free service to host the email for your domain. It's worth it just for their spam filtering alone! This also gives you a portal to use web mail from anywhere, like gmail. Google provides very good step-by-step instructions for moving your email, changing your DNS records, etc. Create a mail account for yourself, and anyone else you want. Verify that your new custom, nice, short address (bob@mydomain.com instead of boblovesflowers123@gmail.com) works by logging in through the google apps web site.

3. Go to your google apps control panel and upgrade to the Premier Edition. This will cost $50 per user per year. Worth it to me. You get a free 30 day trial, so if for some reason this doesn't work for you or you don't like it, cancel within 30 days and it won't cost you.

4. Download and install Google Apps Sync. https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync Click the "Help and Info for Administrators" and follow the steps to make sure your google apps account is configured correctly for this. After installing, run it, connect to your google apps account and let it sync (initial sync might take an hour or two). Set your Outlook default profile to your google apps created one, you won't be needing the other profile again (but maybe keep it around as a backup in case something happens to your saved mail).

5. Add your google apps account as the PRIMARY gmail account on your Droid. If you've already set up a gmail account, you need to do a factory reset to change the primary account. It's stupid, but that's how it is. When setting up your Droid, enter your full email address (user@yourdomain.ext) and not just the username like you would for a gmail account.

6. Enjoy your new custom domain with all the functionality of a gmail account with a Droid! This works perfectly seamlessly to me with zero effort once it's set up, it even syncs contacts and your calendar with Outlook.

There's really nothing here that's too hard, but it helps to have some internet savvy to know what a domain record, DNS, etc. is. Maybe get a geeky friend to help (I'm an Exchange admin and a Cisco router guy, so it was easy for me). Read and follow google's directions to the letter, they're very good.

Step 4 is optional. If you don't use Outlook or don't want to sync with it, then don't do it. Steps 4 and 5 can be done in either order.

Last edited by DarthMuffin; December 5th, 2009 at 03:29 PM.

vincentp

This is extremely cool. I already own a domain but right now I don't really use it for much. I may actually do this.

Thanks for the detailed instructions

efdisaster

awesome.

bthoward

I've not tried this before but would be interesting to know if anyone has... Can you have outlook sync w/ a local exchange service while also doing the google apps connector synchronization without being required to have two individual profiles?

DarthMuffin

Not that I have seen. I looked into it for Exchange sync at work. I can't use normal Exchange/Droid connectivity yet because we require security. Google makes a calendar sync, which you can use to sync your exchange calendar with google, but that's all I've found.

Mominator

I can confirm this works, and I can also confirm that you have to factory reset if you already had a gmail account in there, as I was the one who had to do it when Darth Muffin was figuring this out.

-Proud Wifey.

PittNet

I just set up my domain to work with GMail and my Droid Incredible. Worked like a charm. The only thing I didn't do was upgrade to the premeir edition of Google Apps because other members in my family have email addresses in my domain and Google wouldn't let me upgrade just one address. I would've had to pay $50per yr for all four of the email addresses. No big deal though. I bought Companion Link for $40 one time fee and it syncs my Outlook with GMail Calendar and Contacts.

BoogieNYC

I was very concerned about this -- I'm about to dump Blackberry for a Droid X and I've been using Google as our domain host for some time, but this is pretty much the clincher. We've been using the Blackberry Sync Tool and the Windows GoogleSync so everything -- except for Notes and Tasks -- sync fine.

I am hoping that Google does something with Notes and Tasks once we're full-on Google users. Alsom, anyone have experience with Hotmail, Yahoo and other domains on the Android aside from Google and Gmail?

tongas

There's a 'Mail' app pre installed on most if not all the android phone where you can use pop3 and imap to sync email, really easy, just click on the app introduce email and password and done.
Hotmail has free pop3 access, for yahoo you need to pay them for pop3. Many ohter email providers have pop3 access for free.

You can access your notes and Task with the android app on Gmail!

johnlgalt

Correction - for Yahoo, just make your location known as Asia to get free yahoo POP access.

__________________

Files for the Motorola® DROID® BIONIC®:
Motorola USB drivers v5.5.0- 32bit | Motorola USB drivers v5.5.0- 64bit | Motorola RSD Lite v5.7

TrawlerJoe

I've done the same thing -- used my own custom domain with google apps as my primary account on the HTC Incredible. Mostly this works fine, but I've found that I can't actually purchase non-free apps from Market, can't upload pictures to Picasa, can't upload MyTracks, and a few other things. Each of these immediately prompt me to add a google account (with .gmail extension).

If anyone has any advice, let me know... thanks.