You’ve done the hard work. You followed the steps in the earlier post to get a free professional custom domain email, configured your routing, and now inquiries are neatly flowing into your Gmail inbox.
But then, a classic mistake happens: you get a message, hit reply, fire off a quick response, and realize a second too late that the email went out from your personal @gmail.com address instead of your shiny new custom domain.
It is an incredibly easy detail to miss when you're managing a flood of emails. By default, Gmail uses your primary account address for all outgoing mail. Fortunately, you don't have to manually check the "From" dropdown menu every single time you send a reply. Gmail has a built-in setting to handle this automatically.
Here is the quick fix to ensure you always reply as the user who received the email.
Step-by-Step Guide
- Open Gmail on your computer.
- Click the Gear icon (Settings) in the top right corner of the screen, then click on See all settings.
- Navigate to the Accounts and Import tab (or just Accounts, depending on your specific layout).
- Scroll down until you find the Send mail as: section. You should see both your personal Gmail address and your configured custom domain email listed here.
- Just below your list of email addresses, look for the sub-setting that says When replying to a message:.
- Select the radio button for Reply from the same address the message was sent to.
Why This Matters
Gmail saves this change automatically. From now on, whenever someone reaches out to your custom email address, hitting "Reply" will automatically set the "From" field to that exact address, perfectly isolating your professional correspondence.
Keep in mind that if you are composing a brand new email from scratch, Gmail will still default to your primary personal address unless you manually change it in the composer block. But for replies, this simple toggle ensures you maintain your professional presentation without having to think twice.
