DEV Community: A Muh Mufqi Zuhudi

Set Up Free Custom Domain Email Using CloudFlare

A Muh Mufqi Zuhudi — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 02:38:44 +0000

Setting up a free custom email for your own domain is easier than you think. You don’t need to pay for expensive email hosting to get a professional-looking email address. Using Cloudflare’s email forwarding feature, you can have a custom domain email that forwards to your personal inbox without extra costs or complications.

In this post, I’ll show you how to forward emails from your custom domain to your personal inbox, like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. I’ll also cover how to send emails using your custom domain through popular email providers.

Set Up a Custom Email for Forwarding on Cloudflare

Cloudflare allows you to forward incoming emails from your custom domain email address to your personal email account from an email service provider (ESP) such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. If your domain is not currently managed by Cloudflare, you can migrate your nameservers (NS) to Cloudflare to enable these features.

Follow these steps to activate email forwarding from your custom domain email address to your personal email account in Cloudflare:

Visit https://dash.cloudflare.com.
At Account home, click your domain (for example: yourdomain.com).
Navigate to Email > Email Routing.
At Email Routing, click Get started and add your forwarding details in the table below:

Custom address Action Destination

me@yourdomain.com Send to an email me@email.com

note: me@yourdomain.com is your desired custom domain email address, and me@email.com is your personal email account from ESP.
Click Create and continue.
Confirm by clicking Continue.

Custom address	Action	Destination
`me@yourdomain.com`	Send to an email	`me@email.com`

At Configure your DNS, add the missing DNS records by clicking Add records and enable:

Record type	Hostname	Priority	Value
MX	yourdomain.com	43	route1.mx.cloudflare.net.
MX	yourdomain.com	58	route2.mx.cloudflare.net.
MX	yourdomain.com	89	route3.mx.cloudflare.net.
TXT	cf2024-1._domainkey.yourdomain.com		"v=DKIM1; h=sha256; k=rsa; p=XXX/xxx"
TXT	yourdomain.com		"v=spf1 include:_spf.mx.cloudflare.net ~all"

Note: This table is an example of the DNS records you’ll see. Some values will be unique to your setup.

Finally, wait until the Routing status shows as Enabled.

Once completed, emails sent to your custom domain address will be forwarded automatically to your personal email account.

Set Up a Custom Email for Sending on Yahoo Mail

Follow these steps to send emails using your custom domain email address in Yahoo Mail:

Visit https://mail.yahoo.com.
Navigate to Settings > More Settings.
At Settings menu, click on Mailboxes.
Click Add button at the bottom of the Mailbox Management options.
Enter your custom email address (for example: me@yourdomain.com) and click Next.
Click Verify to setup your email.
Check your inbox for a new email with the subject: Please verify your email address.
Open the email and click the verification link labeled click here to confirm.

After completing these steps, you will be able to send emails using your custom email address through Yahoo Mail.

References

[1] “Easily creating and routing email addresses with Cloudflare Email Routing,” Cloudflare Blog, Sep. 26, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing.
[2] “Add, delete, or edit a Send-only address in Yahoo Mail,” Yahoo Help, [Online]. Available: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/add-delete-edit-send-only-address-yahoo-mail-sln28342.html.

Set Up a Local MCP Server for Perplexity (macOS Guide)

A Muh Mufqi Zuhudi — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 08:59:31 +0000

This guide helps you set up Perplexity’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) system to automate your macOS securely and efficiently. With the latest Perplexity app update, MCP capability is now built in, enabling seamless integration with local automation tools on your Mac. In this tutorial, you’ll install all required tools and configure your local machine, focusing on connecting Perplexity with @peakmojo/applescript-mcp server for seamless automation.

The diagram below gives you a clear picture of how Perplexity’s automation works on macOS. Commands start in the Perplexity app, pass through the Helper App for secure local communication, and then reach the AppleScript MCP server, which handles all the automation. This setup lets you control Finder, Notes, Calendar, and more, seamlessly and privately, right from within Perplexity.

Architecture diagram of Perplexity MCP, illustrating the role of the Helper App and AppleScript MCP server in enabling secure automation of macOS applications from Perplexity.

Requirements

You’ll need Node.js v20 or higher to run the AppleScript MCP server and use automation features.

node>=20.0.0

Installation Steps

1. Check Your Node.js Installation

First, ensure you have Node.js (version 20 or above):

node --version

If Node.js is below version 20, uninstall the old version first to prevent conflicts before installing the latest.

To uninstall older Node.js versions installed via Homebrew:

brew uninstall node

Then, install the latest version:

brew install node

2. Run the AppleScript MCP Server

Install and start the AppleScript MCP server using npx:

npx -y @peakmojo/applescript-mcp

If the installation runs successfully, you should see logs similar to:

2025-07-24T06:23:39.024Z - applescript-mcp - INFO - Starting AppleScript MCP server
2025-07-24T06:23:39.026Z - applescript-mcp - INFO - Using remote host: localhost
2025-07-24T06:23:39.027Z - applescript-mcp - INFO - Remote user: not set
2025-07-24T06:23:39.027Z - applescript-mcp - INFO - Remote password is not set
2025-07-24T06:23:39.028Z - applescript-mcp - INFO - MCP server started and ready to receive requests

If you see the MCP server started and ready to receive requests log, your setup is successful!

3. Connect Perplexity to Your MCP Server

Open the Perplexity app and follow these steps:

Go to Settings > Connectors
Click Add Connector
Download and install Helper App (if prompted). This enables local communication with your MCP servers.

4. Example Connector Configuration

When adding a new connector, use the following configuration for the Local MCP AppleScript connector:

Server Name: AppleScript

JSON:

{
  "args" : [
    "-y",
    "@peakmojo/applescript-mcp"
  ],
  "command" : "npx",
  "env" : {

  }
}

Note: In the connector setup, select the Advanced option (not Simple), then paste the following in JSON format.

Wrapping Up

Now, Perplexity is set up to control your Mac efficiently through the MCP server and AppleScript automation. This setup gives Perplexity the ability to automate Finder, Spotlight, Notes, Calendar, Contacts, Messages, and other apps, securely and privately, running on your own machine. Happy automating!

References

[1] Perplexity Help Center, "Local and Remote MCPs for Perplexity," https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/11502712-local-and-remote-mcps-for-perplexity, accessed July 24, 2025.
[2] peakmojo, “applescript-mcp,” GitHub repository, https://github.com/peakmojo/applescript-mcp, accessed July 24, 2025.