# Configuring alternative incoming email address for hosted account
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [19 בנובמבר, 2018, 11:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348 "2018-11-19T23:33:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cori](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cori)
#### Post date: [19 בנובמבר, 2018, 11:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348/1 "2018-11-19T23:33:24Z")
I’d like to start investigating new post by email and am trying to configure things to check an email inbox we maintain elsewhere. I’ve got incoming (email\_in) and the associated config lited in [Configuring incoming email to create new topics or group messages](https://meta.discourse.org/t/start-a-new-topic-via-email-e-mail/62977) configured and am looking at the category configuration on the category I want these emails to arrive in. I can set the “Custom incoming email address” setting, but I don’t see where I would configure pop3 polling for that mailbox - everything I can find about setting up polling has to do only with self-hosted account and not [discourse.org](http://discourse.org) accounts.
Does this mean that custom pop3 accounts aren’t available for [discourse.org](http://discourse.org) sites and that I just need to forward email to the discourse-generated incoming email address? Or am I totally missing some step in the documentation somewhere?
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)
#### Post date: [19 בנובמבר, 2018, 11:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348/2 "2018-11-19T23:45:42Z")
> [@cori](#):
>
> Does this mean that custom pop3 accounts aren’t available for [discourse.org](http://discourse.org) sites and that I just need to forward email to the discourse-generated incoming email address?
Yes, to configure an alternative incoming email address on a hosted site, add a forwarding address on your email client to the category’s incoming email address.
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### Author:  [@cori](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cori)
#### Post date: [20 בנובמבר, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348/3 "2018-11-20T03:01:03Z")
Ok, great, thanks! So does that make the fact that the “Custom incoming email address” field shows up in discourse.org-hosted sites’ Category Admin page a bug?
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [20 בנובמבר, 2018, 3:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348/4 "2018-11-20T03:14:48Z")
Nope, it is not a bug. You would need to include the email address that is forwarding to your instance in that field for incoming email to work. On our hosted sites, there are 2 ways to configure incoming email:
**1. Use default plus addressing for your site name**
Say your site name is `example`. On your site you have a `foo` category. Users can email you at `example+foo@discoursemail.com`, assuming you enable `email in` in site settings and check off the `Accept incoming emails sent to: example+foo@discoursemail.com` box in category settings.
**1.5. Use custom plus addressing for your site name**
SImilar to example 1, you can enter a custom plus address for a category using the `Custom incoming email address` field. So instead of users emailing `example+foo@discoursemail.com` you could configure `example+bar@discoursemail.com`
**2. Configure email forwarding**
The alternate option is to configure an external inbox which forwards to your site. Say you have `support@example.com`. You could configure that inbox to forward mail to `example+support@discoursemail.com`, so that emails are posted to your support category. However, since the emails are sent to `support@example.com`, you need to include that as a custom incoming email address, in addition to checking off the `accept incoming emails sent to...` box.
* * *
Does this make sense?
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### Author:  [@cori](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cori)
#### Post date: [20 בנובמבר, 2018, 3:51am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348/5 "2018-11-20T03:51:15Z")
Um, I guess it makes sense after reading it through a couple of times. It seems less than intuitive.
It also doesn’t seem like our site is following those rules though. I’m using option 2 and here’s what the category in question looks like:
So I don’t have the forwarding address configured with the address that’s forwarding the emails. However it seems to be working fine.
For my purposes at the moment I’m all set since it appears to be working (and thanks for your help!) but if you want more details I’m happy to provide more information.
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [20 בנובמבר, 2018, 4:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348/6 "2018-11-20T04:00:09Z")
> [@cori](#):
>
> I’m using option 2 and here’s what the category in question looks like:
From your screenshot that looks like option 1. You’re using the `discoursemail.com` domain with plus addressing. Unless you want users to email `hyperweb+something-other-than-staff-inbox@discoursemail.com`, or setup an inbox on your domain instead of `discoursemail.com` no need to modify the `custom incoming email address` field.
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### Author:  [@cori](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cori)
#### Post date: [20 בנובמבר, 2018, 4:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348/7 "2018-11-20T04:01:58Z")
Ah in fact yes, I was mistaken, I was only testing it by direct email, not forwarded yet. Sorry for the confusion.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [20 בדצמבר, 2018, 4:02am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-alternative-incoming-email-address-for-hosted-account/102348/8 "2018-12-20T04:02:03Z")
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