How to Add mail servers for Gmail email routing?

Add an Email Host

Typically, Gmail is set up for direct delivery. Direct delivery sends all messages for people in your domain to their Gmail inbox.

Sometimes, You may want to set up other email delivery options, especially when managing your own email servers. For example, you might want to deliver Microsoft Exchange messages to an on-premise email server. To set up other email delivery options, you must first add mail routes for your on-premise servers using the Add Route setting. 

Add a mail route for your domain


Before you begin: In these steps, you'll enter the hostname or the IP address for the email server where you want to deliver the email. Have this information ready when adding a new mail route for your domain. If you don't know your server's hostname or IP address, contact your server provider or check the support information for your server.

  • From the Google workspace Admin console, go to Apps
  • This will open up Google Workspace, then Select Gmail
  • This will open the Gmail settings from that select Hosts

  • Click Add Route

  • In the Add mail route box, take these steps:
    • Name:  Enter a name or description for the new mail route
    • Specify email server:
      • Click the Down arrow menu and select a host option: Single host or Multiple hosts.
      • Under the host options menu, enter server IP addresses or hostnames and enter the appropriate port number.
      • If you have selected multiple hosts you need to add at least one primary and secondary hostname or IP address and specify the Port numbers. You can also add multiple primary and secondary addresses and distribute the load % among them

    Note: Only Ports Numbers 25,587 and a number from 1024 to 65535 are allowed

    • Options: Select the options for the new route. Options with Recommended are on by default for new routes:
      • Click the Down arrow menu and select a host option: Single host or Multiple hosts.
        • Perform MX lookup on host—Deliver to the hosts associated with the domain you entered. If you entered a domain, check this box to verify the host MX record and deliver to the servers in the domain MX record. If you entered an email server, leave this box unchecked
        • Require mail to be transmitted over a secure transport (TLS) connection (Recommended)—Encrypt messages between sending mail servers and receiving mail servers with Transport Layer Security (TLS).
        • Require CA signed certificate (Recommended)—The client SMTP server must present a certificate signed by a Certificate Authority that is trusted by Google.
        • Validate certificate hostname (Recommended)—Verify that the receiving hostname matches the certificate presented by the SMTP server.
    • To verify the connection to the servers that you added, click Test TLS connection.
    • At the bottom of the Add mail route box, click Save

    Changes can take up to 24 hours but typically happen more quickly.


    For more information please visit Add mail servers for Gmail email routing