Activate Receiving

Receiving must be active before you can create mailbox accounts for a domain.

What Activation Does

When you click Activate receiving, SDP Email:

1. Redirects you to Cloudflare for authorization when needed.
2. Finds the matching Cloudflare zone.
3. Publishes the MX records required for inbound delivery.
4. Routes inbound email to SDP Email.

After activation, the domain receiving status changes to Active.

Existing MX Records

If the domain already has MX records, SDP Email shows a confirmation step before replacing them. Confirm only when you are ready for inbound mail to flow through SDP Email.

Failed Activation

If activation fails:

• Confirm the domain is an active Cloudflare zone.
• Confirm you connected the Cloudflare account that owns the zone.
• Click Retry after fixing the issue.

Receiving Before Accounts

Email accounts cannot be created until receiving is active. This prevents creating mailbox users for a domain that cannot yet receive mail.

Catch-All Mailbox

The domain details page lets an administrator select one active mailbox as the catch-all destination. SDP Email resolves each inbound envelope recipient in this order:

1. An exact active mailbox address.
2. The active catch-all mailbox for the domain.
3. Discard when neither exists.

This tenant-level setting uses the existing provider-wide Cloudflare or Amazon SES inbound route; it does not create a separate provider rule. The original envelope recipient is preserved on the stored message, so the catch-all mailbox can see which address received it.

Mail to an exact but disabled mailbox follows the same catch-all fallback. Disabling the mailbox currently selected as catch-all automatically disables the domain catch-all until another active mailbox is selected.

If the catch-all mailbox has verified forwarding destinations, catch-all messages are also forwarded while their local copies are retained.