Getting started for business

This page is the order we recommend when an organisation starts using meil. Each step links on to the page that explains it. You can skip a step and come back to it later — Admin shows you what is still missing.

If you would rather see what is on offer first, look at What's included and Plans.

1. Create the workspace

Create the account for the organisation. The workspace gets a permanent meil domain straight away, so email works while you set up your own. The wizard takes you through Welcome, Domain, Team, Brand and Done, and you can leave it and pick it up again later.

See Create account and Administration for organizations.

2. Add and verify the domain

Add the domain you own under Domains, and put the TXT record the console shows into your domain provider. Click Check now once the record is in place — DNS can take a little while. The console then shows MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and MTA-STS, and checks that they are correct.

Wait until you have finished step 5 before you switch the MX record.

See Email and domains.

3. Invite users with the right role

Once the domain is active, you can invite colleagues. Under Colleagues, choose Invite colleague, give an email address they can already receive post at, pick the local part and domain for the company address, and set language, role and subscription. Only give the administrator role to the people who are actually going to administer the workspace.

See Users and access.

4. Set up shared inboxes and lists

Create the shared addresses the team will reply from, such as salg@, support@ and info@, along with any distribution lists you need. Both live under Email → Inboxes. Use a shared inbox when several people are to handle the same post; use a list when an address should simply forward to a group.

See Email and domains.

5. Move email and calendar from your current provider

The import runs while the old system is still live, so nobody loses email along the way. Microsoft 365 connects directly with the Microsoft account. Google Workspace, iCloud and others are fetched over IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV, with an app password at the old provider.

• From Outlook / Microsoft 365
• From Gmail
• From another IMAP server

Once everyone has been moved across, switch the MX record so that new email goes to meil.

Lots of users?

An administrator can bulk-import several users over IMAP from Migration in Admin. If there are a lot of you, you can also ask for help with planning the move.

6. Install the apps

The desktop app mirrors the meil folder between your machine and the browser, and can back up selected folders outside the sync folder. On mobile, you install the web app from the browser and get push notifications for new email.

See Desktop app and Mobile App and PWA.

If anyone carries on using Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird, set those up over IMAP and SMTP, CalDAV and CardDAV, each with its own app password.

7. Turn on network protection

Point the office network at meil's DNS servers, register the office's fixed IP address, and choose which categories to block. Malware, phishing, botnet and cryptomining are blocked by default. Add your own allow and block lists for whatever you know you need.

Machines at home or on the road are not covered by this protection.

See DNS / Web protection.

8. Set up the device overview

Install the agent on the Mac, Windows and Linux machines you want in the overview. You then see hardware, operating system, installed software and known vulnerabilities for each machine. The overview is read-only: it does not control the machines.

See Device management.

9. Connect sign-in for your own systems

Finally, connect your systems to meil as the identity provider, so that one account opens everything and closing one account closes everything. Register the apps that speak OIDC or SAML 2.0, control access with groups, and let the HR system create and close down employees over SCIM 2.0 if you want. Start in Monitoring and set enforcement to Enforced once the setup has been verified.

Requires Pro or Enterprise. See Identity.

After the setup

• Go through email security, the audit log and data export in Security and logs.
• Check the plan, active services and payment method before the trial is over, in Billing and settings.
• Ask your employees to turn on passkeys or two-factor authentication.

The order matters for the domain

Do not switch the MX record until the users have been created and the import has finished. The console tells you when SPF, DKIM and DMARC are in place, and that should be right before email is routed here.