What is an alias?
This article will explain what aliases are and how they can be used.
Aliases allow you to send and receive emails to an alternate mailbox without revealing your original email address. Creating different aliases can also help to organise and diversify your business email addresses without purchasing additional mailboxes.
For example, you may create the alias ‘sales@coolbusiness.co.uk’ for the email address ‘john@coolbusiness.co.uk’ to make your business appear more professional. Any mail sent to the ‘sales@’ address will also be redirected to your ‘john@’ inbox.
Please note: you can create up to 50 aliases within the same email account. However, you can only create aliases using the same domain name as the original mailbox: if your email address ends in ‘@coolbusiness.co.uk’, any new alias will also need to end in ‘@coolbusiness.co.uk’.
For more information about aliases, select a question from the list below:
Can I see emails that are sent to my alias in my inbox?
Yes. Using the example outlined above, any messages sent to the ’sales@coolbusiness.co.uk’ alias will also appear in your main ‘john@coolbusiness.co.uk’ inbox as sent to sales@. This can also be done when accessing your email account via Webmail or a third-party email client, like Outlook or Gmail.
Can I send emails from my alias?
Yes, you can do this by changing the ‘From’ address when composing an email in Webmail. Simply click the down arrow that appears alongside your email address and you’ll see the complete list of aliases that you can use. Furthermore, when replying to an email that was originally sent to your alias address (i.e., ‘sales@coolbusiness.co.uk’), the alias will automatically be selected, ensuring that the recipient doesn’t see your primary email address (i.e., ‘john@coolbusiness.co.uk’).
What’s the difference between an alias and a forwarding address?
Although an alias and a forwarding address both redirect emails, they work differently. An alias is a secondary email that sends messages directly to your primary inbox, while a forwarding address sends emails from your mailbox to a different email account, which can even be on another domain. For example, you could use a forwarding address to automatically send emails from ’sales@coolbusiness.co.uk’ to ’john@hotmail.co.uk’.
How long does it take before an alias becomes active?
You can start sending and receiving emails through an alias as soon as it’s been created.
Can I turn an existing email address into an alias?
If you’ve already assigned an email address as a mailbox, you must remove that mailbox to repurpose it as an alias. For instance, if you’ve set up a mailbox for ‘john@coolbusiness.co.uk’ and want to turn it into an alias for joe@, you’ll need to delete the existing john@ mailbox.
Can an alias go to multiple email addresses?
No, it isn’t possible to assign one alias to multiple separate email addresses.
What can I do if my alias isn't working?
If you find that your alias isn’t functioning as it should, try these steps:
Make sure that the alias is correctly configured in your Email Dashboard.
Double-check the spelling of the alias. Even a small typo can cause issues.
Make sure that the person sending the email is using the correct spelling for your alias.