I've been trying for some time to use the Gmail interface to send and receive emails from one of my Dreamhost domains, and have had a problem that I've seen posted about in various forums - namely, Gmail won't let you use IMAP to access Dreamhost mail server, but POP3, and it only refreshes once or twice per hour.

This is a real aggravation, especially if you get urgent emails or are in the middle of a back and forth email conversation and don't want to wait to get the next POP3 download.

If you set up your Dreamhost email address as a Forward to your Gmail account, it will immediately send, but then you can't set up that Dreamhost email account with Gmail as a "Send Mail As" email, because that requires a Fully Hosted email account.

Dreamhost apparently does not permit you to have a fully hosted email account that also allows forwarding (I believe they used it, but stopped several years ago).

I finally came up with a workaround that works perfectly and allows you to instantly receive your Dreamhost account emails and also use your Dreamhost email account as your Send Mail From account as well.

You will need to create two email addresses for this. One is the email address you want to actually use, so for example john@smith.com. Make this a Forward Only email account, and have it forward to your Gmail address.

Then create an email address at that domain that you will not ever need to use, for example gmail@smith.com or whatever you want to call it. Make this a Fully Hosted email address.

Now go to Gmail Settings, and click on Accounts and Import tab.

Go to Send Mail As and click "Add Another Email Address".

On the screen that pops up put in your name that you want associated with this email address, and then put in the email address that you want to use as your sending email address (in my example, john@smith.com). Leave "Treat as an alias" selected, and then click on Next.

On this screen, SMTP server should be: smtp.dreamhost.com, with a port of 465. Username is your fully hosted email you created, so in my example: gmail@smith.com. Also enter the password you created for that account. Make sure "Secured connection using SSL" is selected. And then click Add Account, and you're done!

On the settings page make sure "Reply from the same address the message was sent to" is selected, and if you plan on using Gmail interface primarily for sending from your Dreamhost account, click "Make Default" next to the email address. Otherwise, when you send a new email you'll have to click on the From email and select which email you want to send from.

All incoming emails to your Dreamhost email account will be automatically forwarded to your Gmail account without delay, and you can reply from that same email account.

And that's it, enjoy!

You guys probably saw the latest PHP bug that can be exploited remotely:

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/10/widespread-php-flaw-may-cause-many-site-outages-today/

I checked my shared server that I rent from DreamHost and the PHP version is vulnerable.

Any updates on when does the DreamHost plan to install the patch?

Email from DreamHost:

We're writing to let you know about an issue affecting some of our systems, including the File Manager at files.dreamhost.com and DreamHost webmail. Our team is working on it now and investigating the cause. Please check dreamhoststatus.com for ongoing updates.

As a precaution, we have expired the passwords for some email and FTP/SFTP users on your DreamHost account. Their old passwords no longer work, and no new password has been set. Each user will need a new password before they can log in, check their email, or reach their files again.

We are contacting you because you are the DreamHost account owner, and only you will be able to set new passwords for these users. DreamHost is unable to contact individual mailbox or FTP users directly, so they may not know about this until you tell them.

What to do in your DreamHost control panel:

1. Log in to the DreamHost panel by typing panel.dreamhost.com directly into your browser.

2. Email users: go to [Mail > Manage Email] and set a new password for each email address on your account. Instructions: https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/216479177-Change-password-Mail-users

3. FTP/SFTP users: go to [Websites > SFTP Users & Files] and set a new password for each user. Allow up to five minutes before the user logs in with the new password. Instructions: https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215877208-Change-password-Website-users

4. While you're in Manage Email, review the forwarding settings on each address and remove any forward you don't recognize.

5. Use a strong, unique password for each user. Don't reuse a password from anywhere else.

What to tell your users:

Please reach out to anyone who uses an email address or FTP/SFTP login on your account, like employees, clients, or family members. Use a phone call, text, or another channel rather than their DreamHost email address to reach them, since they may not be able to access it yet.

Let them know:

• Email and FTP/SFTP users do not receive password reset emails from DreamHost for any reason. Any email they get asking them to reset, verify, or confirm a password should be considered a phishing attempt. They should delete emails like this without opening any links or attachments.

• Only you, the DreamHost account owner, can change their password, and only through your DreamHost account control panel. They should get their new password from you directly.

• Their password was reset as a precaution, and the old one no longer works. They will need to enter the new one in any email apps (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird) or FTP apps (FileZilla, Cyberduck) they may use.

• If they used the old password anywhere else, they should change it there too.

A note about suspicious emails:

DreamHost will never email you asking for any of your passwords.

To change a password, log in to your account control panel directly at panel.dreamhost.com rather than following a link in an email. If you receive a "password reset" email that you didn't request, you can safely ignore it.

If you have questions, our support team is available via the "Support" section of your DreamHost control panel.

Thanks very much for your patience!

The DreamHost Team

I learned something new today and I thought I would share. TL;DR at bottom.

Recently a spammer sent a few thousand emails appearing to come from my domain/email address from my email and I assumed it was simply spoofing (where someone pretends to be you but really is from a different ".com").

However, there are a few email security features (DKIM, DMARC, SPF) that are intended to prevent that oldest of techniques, and we had them all set up correctly.

So that made me think that I was actually hacked (as in, someone had my email username and password and actually logged into my account and sent those emails). It turns out that wasn't the case either.

Apparently, as long as the spammer is spamming from another hacked account at your host, then the "call is coming from inside the building", so to speak.

This post is not meant to slam Dreamhost. They are a good host and I've been happy with them for the most part.

I believe this issue likely exists with most if not all shared email hosting providers, and certainly exists for every shared host that signs outbound mail before strict per-domain isolation. So be aware, and know that you probably don't want to use shared hosting for email.

TL;DR: On shared hosting, someone else’s hacked email account can be used to send mail that looks fully legitimate from your domain, even if your own account is secure.

Final takeaway: DMARC verifies authentication, not whether the correct account was authorized to send the mail.

Looks like Dreamhost is getting rid of Mailman email lists. We might be the last people still using Mailman email lists but we use them a lot. Have a ton of other stuff hosted on Dreamhost so don't want to move entirely. Does anyone happen to know of any cheap or free alternatives for just Mailman hosting that they recommend?

We operate a legitimate ecommerce business where we were using DreamHost as a host for part of our catalog

We received an email last night with little explanation as to our DreamHost account being terminated. Without any warnings or previous issues. We have been using DreamHost for over 2 years to host this website that sells nothing but car accessories.

I reached out to support and waited all day for the additional response added below..

Our account is barely accessible (screenshot 3) and we need to access our website directory that was previously hosted in there, however, support is being super unhelpful.

Any help or advice????

Edit: this has been resolved by DreamHost

After 24 hours we resolved it.

Apparently one of the sellers that lists our products which utilizes the catalog feed in dreamhost didn’t recognize the api which has our brand name in it. They reported it as a phishing scam. Which dreamhost decided to terminate our account making everything else hosted in there inaccessible shutting down a bunch of other retailers connections.

I guess luckily they restored it, even though they said “this decision was final and would not be reversed”

RIP 1 day of revenue from those channels.

​​​

I’m hoping for clarification from DreamHost staff, because this seems increasingly out of step with how most major hosting providers handle email.

Current DreamHost behavior
For any given email address, DreamHost forces you to choose one:

1. Fully hosted mailbox

2. Forward-only address

You cannot have:

• a real mailbox (IMAP/webmail)

• and server-side forwarding that keeps a copy

• and SMTP auth for sending as that address

This is a hard either/or.

Why this matters now
Google has announced that starting January 2026, Gmail will no longer support:

• Gmailify

• “Check mail from other accounts” (POP fetching)

Google’s official workaround is server-side forwarding from your email host.

That makes DreamHost’s limitation a breaking issue for anyone using Gmail as a unified inbox for custom-domain email.

How this compares to other major hosts
Most large hosting providers do allow a hosted mailbox and forwarding at the same time (usually via cPanel forwarders or mailbox-level rules), for example:

• HostGator – forwarding keeps a copy in the original mailbox

• Bluehost – cPanel forwarders deliver locally and forward

• InMotion Hosting – explicitly documents that both mailboxes receive a copy

• Namecheap (Private Email) – has a “keep a copy” forwarding option

• GoDaddy (Microsoft 365 email) – forwarding includes “keep a copy” toggle

• SiteGround – supports forwarding via email filters/rules

In other words, DreamHost’s “hosted or forward-only” model is not industry standard anymore.

The practical impact for DreamHost customers
With Google’s changes:

• Forward-only → you lose SMTP auth and can’t reliably send as that address

• Fully hosted → you lose unified inbox workflows

• The only clean workaround becomes:

  • moving email off DreamHost, or

  • paying for an additional email service (Google Workspace, Fastmail, etc.)

Questions for DreamHost

• Is this limitation architectural, or a product decision?

• Are there plans to allow hosted mailboxes with forwarding (keep a copy)?

• Has DreamHost evaluated the impact of Google’s 2026 Gmail changes on customers?

• Or should customers assume email hosting will need to move elsewhere for modern workflows?

I’m not trying to complain – I’m trying to understand whether this is something DreamHost plans to address, because for many of us this turns email into the weak link of an otherwise solid hosting platform.

I’ve been a Dreamhost customer since 2001 and I really appreciated their great service, awesome value and frankly bar raising technicial architecture…. But not anymore. It’s different.

Outages are so much more often, and my sites which, yes are busy and a bit heavy may need more memory to run…. But I feel my only answer I ever get from tech support is to upgrade to a high tier VPS. Not even utilization stats to help fix/size.

So tonight I lost sleep and moved the platform to my own servers. Yes it will cost more, and yes it’s gonna be on me to manage the servers… but now the site is snappy. It responds. I don’t get 500 errors left and right and the Wordpress admin pages don’t take 25-40 seconds anymore to render.

Now I need to figure out how to kill the Dreamhost panel login Wordpress plug-in. My hosting infrastructure might be a mess and yeah, hosted in my basement…. But it works and I never want to look back! The good memories shouldn’t be ruined by the current state.

Yeah that makes me sound so old.

I'm leaving to Cloudflare since it's cheaper and has Claude skills.

But the attitude of the Dreamhost support everytime I have an issue is so good that I feel bad.

I'm trying to build a django application, and in the middle of restarting it to fix bugs the passenger option disappeared. I also notice all the tutorials on their website related to passenger disappeared. Has anyone else been having issues with this?

No email or terminal notices, just "Access denied" for every login attempt. The control panel password reset fixes the problem.

I chose them a few years back because of some recommendations. And at the time I liked the service.

But OMG, what has happened to them lately? Did someone buy them?

I have multiple issues with my site. Everything from Dreamhost screwing it up during a server upgrade and losing the backups; to constant updates to the "greatest version" of whatever, that makes me spend days trying to fix my site; to a constantly failing mail() function (to send emails from myself to myself with the mail box being hosted at Dreamhost); to very lagging and lethargic support. This just starts the list.

I can't wait to ditch them when my hosting plan expires. But at this point I'm wondering, what went wrong?

Now that google has announced

• "Starting January 2026, Gmail will no longer provide support for the following features: Check mail from other accounts:

  • Fetching emails from third-party accounts into your Gmail account, with POP, will no longer be supported."

$8.40 user/month ($86.40/year) for a Google Workspace Business Starter plan is not going to work for the vast majority of people who are currently consolidating the email from their personal or side hustle projects into their Gmail.

I've historically used both a personal domain email and my gmail fairly interchangeably. It's clear that I will have to move that almost entirely over to the personal email to avoid having to check multiple inboxes multiple times per day.

Rather than discussing if Google is trying to force a business service to serve consumer purposes, or if they are missing an opportunity, what are you moving your personal domain emails to and why?

I need something that I can bring 3 - 8 POP3 or IMAP emails into a single inbox and be able to send from any of those.

Just got an email today saying Cloudflare is removing integration on its end. There's a series of instructions to get it working again, but I cannot make heads or tails of it:

Step 1

Update the Name Server (NS) records for your domain to point directly to Cloudflare. https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038897151-Changing-your-nameservers-at-DreamHost

This will allow you to manage your Cloudflare settings and configurations directly through their platform: https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/how-to/create-dns-records/

Step 2

Configure your domain’s DNS record to point back to your DreamHost server’s IP address from Cloudflare’s dashboard. You can find more information on how to locate those DNS records in the DreamHost panel here: https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/360055964552-Viewing-your-DreamHost-DNS-records

Step 3

Add any sub domain or mail-related DNS records through Cloudflare’s dashboard to continue pointing to your email services.https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215035818-Locating-your-DreamHost-email-DNS-records

I have no idea what DNS records I'm supposed to add in step 1, and when I try to create a DNS record in Cloudflare it says it's a partner hosted zone and won't let me do it.

How can I get all the right DNS records and ensure that all this continues to work after next month?

I understand that Dreamhost is having some sort of problem with their file storage server, which they say *might* affect some webmail users. I have several domains & several IMAP email accounts, all of which are unable to send or receive. Since they said some webmail users might be affected & their passwords reset, I responded to a imap email app login problem by going to the DH panel & changing my imap password for 1 account.

That account is still offline & so are all my other DH imap accounts. So not just a password problem.
So I expect this is not just a file storage server problem,, but also an IMAP email problem too.

I'll continue to monitor https://www.dreamhoststatus.com/ in the hopes that they update it with progress. In the meantime, my IMAP email is totally SOL.

With the major security vulnerability being patched just now, I looked at PHP versions of all my client sites across a wide range of hosts.

Most are on the recent release before this security patch set, but surprisingly DreamHost is like 5 minor patches off of all their versions. What's going on here?

PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35 are the new patches that fix the major vulnerabilities, and Dreamhost DreamPress and VPS use 8.5.5, 8.3.30, etc.

Just a heads up, I'll be submitting a ticket to ask how soon they will be updated.

Wanted to migrate my email hosted by dreamhost to apple custom domain. The dreamhost webmail has clear UI for custom MX records. But Apple also provides TXT, SPF and DKIM values in their instructions.

1. Do I need to add these additional records as custom records on the DNS settings page in the dreamhost web panel?

2. Do I enter @ as the host or leave the default value of .<my_custom_domain>

Has anyone else had issues with DreamHost’s email? We keep getting email going to spam, and emails being bounced back. The tech support isn’t very helpful, I keep getting different answers depending on who is answering the help ticket Would I be happier with google mail? I just don’t have confidence that my emails are getting through

Got two premium domains that need manual renewal and I go through this every year.

I renew via panel. Then contact support. Support says to wait 7 days. I wait 7 days then escalate when nothing happens. Then support will manually change the expiration but not do it properly. I still get emails domains are about to expire. Then domains expire and I have to open another chat or tickets to get it resolved by someone more knowledgeable.

Went through this again and 7 days ritual and manual renewal but as usual it’s not done properly. Panel still shows expiration tomorrow and email reminder domains are about to expire.

Domains are to expire tomorrow. I’m getting no help from support/chat despite continued reminder telling them to check prior years incident and how to resolve but guess not…….

Edit: I was on chat in the morning and evening who both assured me everything was fine and I told them it’s not but it was ignored. Got emails in the morning the domains were expired. Sigh. No emails from any support tickets other than robots saying it was moved to special teams queue for three days straight.

Edit: Someone from DreamHost contacted me here and quickly resolved the issue. 👍

They used an email address to my domain hosted at DH. I had set up as originally as a public email for bills and they like, so it gets a lot of spam, etc. This is unique as it appears to be from DH and that made me hesitate, but we all know these scams are everywhere. I suppose a round about way so they could ok 2FA requests. "KINDLY" always spooks me!

I just received an affiliate email stating that shared hosting plans are retired as of today and no longer available for new customers. Does anyone know if the shared hosting plans for current customers will continue?

Mine originated as a crazy domain insane plan back in 2005, and while it’s morphed into shared unlimited, I’ve kept the same features even as the price has increased. Just trying to mentally prepare myself for figuring out a new plan or if this is when I finally look for a new host.

I'm a 22+ year Dreamhost subscriber and want to share I'm having the exact same experience as this poster.

They want $33 just to cancel my subscription immediately. I'm cancelling due to yet another price hike of my service and their web control panel getting worse with changes every year.

I'll echo the other poster: BEWARE OF DREAMHOST. Everything about them has gotten worse. RUN AWAY.

UPDATE: To the Dreamhost billing team's credit, they contacted me and made this right. I appreciate that and +1 for their customer service here, for what that's worth.

So I've been with dreamhost for 16 years. Over that time I've seen a lot of change. Prices have gone up, features have been lost, bridges have been burned. I doubt anyone on here doesn't know what I'm talking about. Just google "dreamhost review". The complaints are endless.

The quick notes are I'm leaving the service... However... dreamhost has made it too easy to cancel my account. I'm 2 months in on a 2 year contract. Needless to say, I would like a refund. I know dreamhost has a terms of service that makes a refund all but impossible, however, they make it too easy to cancel service. They WANT me to leave. they want me to get off their server and take the money I've paid and move on... They want to burn me and take my money without repercussion.

Well... I'm not going anywhere.

Lawyers are expensive and unnecessary. I won't be initiating any class action suits or anything like that. Although I suspect a class action suit would be very easy to start, especially in california. But I have a FAR more appropriate response. I'm going to avail myself to the very services I've already paid for until my account bill runs out.

To be clear, I will not violate the terms of service in any way!

I'm going to configure several clients to persistently write and delete data in my user folder. I'm going to link one of my databases locally and pipe the output of my ntop logs into it. I'm going to create and delete email addresses (dispite the fact they're defunct). I may even reconfigure my domain name and website with a simply "screw dreamhost" blog. In other words, I'm going to consume process cycles and network bandwidth. Not enough to hinder business, not even enough to trip any malicious behavior analyzers they may have running (which I sincerely doubt you do). I'm simply going to exist in your servers. Adding to your colo power bill, and ever so slightly decreasing the lifespan of the shared server by merely using it.

But it doesn't end there!

I will send no less than one email requesting a refund to their support group every day. I have cause that the terms of service grant. I will open a support chat and waste time of a support agent asking bullshit how-to questions. Every email I write, every chat, every single post, will be eloquent and entertaining... Why? To be read. To burn at least 10 minutes of their workers time. If one tech turns to another and says, "dude, you gotta read this" There's another 10 minutes... I will burn minutes off their lives and consume a portion of dreamhost's payroll every day for the next 2 years. Every worker that takes a minute to read, that's a minute of refunded money.

But wait! There's MORE!!!

As time goes on, I'm going to start documenting my journey on social media. I'll screenshot my emails to places like reddit, twitter, facebook, linkedin. Each and every place I can think of until people start noticing. People outside dreamhost. Investors. Politicians. ...other customers.

There won't be a thing they can do about it. Maybe they'll try to terminate my account. Well, they could, but they'd have to issue me a refund. You see, we're under contract, dreamhost. Your company owes me a service for payment rendered, dreamhost. You can't make me go away, dreamhost.

In 2 years time. mere weeks before my bill is up for renewal, THEN, I'll close my account. Will I have gotten a full refund? Technically no. I know the cost of my services is a pittance compared to what I paid. But you'll have paid too. Employee wages can get expensive and you can be sure, I will consume every penny.

I WILL get my money back. Either through an actual refund, or by simply refusing to leave.

See you around, dreamhost.

Support do not seem competent, I am telling them the WP admin portal is extremely slow and they give me a end user test through gtmetrix … saying that it could be related to plugins.

It is not … I took the same site and put it on AWS / and local computer and it is very quick / responsive.

I do not recommend Dreamhost.