Receiving emails on Heroku

Question

I'm working on a web application that is going to replace an existing one. That existing one runs on another server, and its domain name is synergy-croatia.com. Now, I have my new application already hosted on Heroku (synergy-croatia.herokuapp.com), and all I need to do now is to make the domain synergy-croatia.com to point to my Heroku application. But there is one more thing I need to implement — you guessed — receiving emails.

I want to be able to receive emails sent to email adresses like [email protected]. So, I did a lot of Googling, and I encountered some nice solutions. But each solution implies that I have a custom domain, for which I need to set some DNS settings. I mean, I do have it (synergy-croatia.com), but obviously I can use it only after I finish my application.

Does that mean that I have to buy a domain just so I can implement receiving emails? Can I somehow set these DNS settings (MXes and others) directly on the Heroku subdomain? Or is there another way?

UPDATE:

One of the solutions I found was, of course, this one: http://nanceskitchen.com/2010/02/21/accept-incoming-emails-into-a-heroku-app-using-sendgrid/

But it requires a custom domain.

UPDATE 2:

This is important, I forgot to mention it. I just want these email adresses to be virtual, to forward emails to real adresses.

Answer 1

CloudMailin doesn't require you to use a 'custom domain' it gives you an email address that you can forward to, using your own domain is an optional extra. It's also available as a Heroku addon. You could use this to forward your emails from any existing email server to the address that CloudMailin gives you. The original email address is also still obtainable.

Answer 2

Usually, when you move the domain (synergy-croatia.com) to point to your Heroku application, you won't need to change the existing mail setup. You just need to set a CNAME record for www to heroku, and leave the MX (which controls the mail) in place.

If you don't have a mail solution in place, you need to look for one outside Heroku. Many domain name providers have free mail forwarding included, or you can use gmail, Outlook.com etc.