What is an email alias?

An email alias is an additional address that belongs to a mailbox you already have. Mail sent to the alias lands in the same inbox, and, once it's set up for sending, you can send from it too. It is not a separate account: no extra password, no separate inbox, and in Distro no extra mailbox slot.

Alias vs separate mailbox

Aliases are useful when you want a role address (sales@, founders@) or a variant of your name without paying for another mailbox. A separate mailbox makes more sense when you need more total sending capacity or a separate inbox for someone else.

Aliases in Google Workspace

In Google Workspace, an administrator adds aliases (Google may call them alternate email addresses) to a user in the Google Admin console. A Workspace alias normally belongs to the same Google user and the same mailbox: mail to it arrives in that user's Gmail.

Receiving and sending are set up separately. To send from the alias, it also needs to appear in Gmail under Send mail as for that user. For an alias that belongs to your own Workspace user, Gmail usually doesn't ask for an SMTP server. Follow How to add a Google Workspace alias for the steps.

"Send mail as" addresses in Gmail

Gmail also lets you add other addresses you own under Send mail as (in Gmail settings, the Accounts tab, called Accounts and Import in some accounts). This works in free Gmail and in Workspace. For an address that doesn't belong to your Google account, for example one hosted with another email provider, Gmail asks you to prove you own it, usually with a confirmation email, and may ask for that provider's SMTP settings.

Those cases are covered in Add another sending address in Gmail and Gmail is asking for SMTP settings.

How Distro uses aliases

Distro sends from an alias through the Google account it belongs to:

1. Google account: maya@yourcompany.com
2. Gmail Send mail as: sales@yourcompany.com (verified)
3. Distro sender: sales@yourcompany.com, "Alias of maya@yourcompany.com"
4. Campaign From: sales@yourcompany.com

• You add the alias as a sender on the Sending accounts page: Add sender, then Enable.
• Distro reads the connected account's Send mail as list, finds the alias and marks it "Alias of" the account.
• An alias Gmail hasn't verified yet shows Waiting for Google and can't be used until it's verified.
• Distro never creates or verifies aliases itself. Set them up in Google first.

See Use a verified alias in Distro for the full steps, and Why my alias is not showing in Distro if one is missing.

Is an alias the same as a forwarding address?

Not quite. A forwarding rule copies mail from one mailbox to another, and each mailbox stays separate. An alias is just another name for the same mailbox. If a prospect replies to a Google Workspace alias, the reply lands in the mailbox Distro is connected to, so Distro can match it to your campaign.

A Send mail as address hosted with another provider is different: replies to it go to that provider's mailbox unless you forward them into your connected Google account. Distro can only detect replies that reach a connected mailbox. See From vs Reply-To: where replies go.