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Lightdash Cloud

Custom email domains are a Lightdash Cloud feature and are rolled out per organization. If you don’t see the Email domain tab in your organization settings, contact the Lightdash team to have it enabled.

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What is a custom email domain?

By default, scheduled deliveries and alerts are emailed from a Lightdash address. With a custom email domain, those emails send from an address on your own domain instead — for example reports@ecom-store.com. Emails are authenticated with DKIM and a custom return-path so they pass DMARC alignment for your domain. This is useful when you want to:
  • Match your brand. Report emails look like they come from your company, not from Lightdash — especially important if you share dashboards with clients or embed Lightdash in your own product.
  • Improve deliverability. Authenticated email from your own domain is less likely to land in spam, and recipients are more likely to recognize and open it.
  • Keep replies. Recipients who reply reach an address you own.
Transactional emails (sign-in links, password resets, invites) are not affected — they always send from the Lightdash address.

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Set up your sending domain

You must be an organization admin, and you’ll need access to your domain’s DNS settings.
  1. In your Lightdash instance, click your initials at the top right and select Organization settings.
  2. Open the Email domain tab.
  3. Enter the domain you want to send from. We recommend a dedicated subdomain like reports.ecom-store.com — it keeps your report email reputation separate from your primary mail domain.
  4. Enter the From address (an address at that domain, e.g. reports@reports.ecom-store.com) and an optional From name.
  5. Click Set up domain. Lightdash shows two DNS records to add at your DNS provider: a DKIM TXT record and a Return-Path CNAME record (default host pm-bounces).
  6. Add both records at your DNS provider, then click Verify DNS records.
DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours to propagate. You can leave the page and come back — Lightdash re-checks pending domains in the background and emails your organization’s admins once verification completes. If both records haven’t verified within 72 hours, the domain is marked failed and you can re-run Verify DNS records to restart.
Using Cloudflare? The Return-Path CNAME record must be set to DNS Only (grey cloud), not proxied. A proxied record will never verify.

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Enable sending

Both records must verify before you can enable sending. Once the domain shows as Verified, turn on Send from this domain. From then on, scheduled deliveries and alerts send from your address. Behavior at each stage:
StateFrom: headerReply-To:
Not configuredLightdash addressLightdash address
Configured, not yet verifiedLightdash addressYour custom address
Verified but not enabledLightdash addressLightdash address
Verified and enabledYour custom addressYour custom address
Setup never blocks or delays scheduled deliveries — if verification is pending or has failed, emails keep sending from the Lightdash address.

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Disable or remove

  • Turn off Send from this domain to revert cleanly to the Lightdash sending identity. Your domain stays verified so you can re-enable it anytime.
  • Click Remove domain to delete the sending domain and its DNS configuration entirely.

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Limitations

  • One sender identity per organization. The current release supports a single custom domain per organization. Multi-domain sending is not available.
  • DMARC policy is up to you. Lightdash configures DKIM and the return path so your emails align for DMARC, but publishing (or tightening) a DMARC policy on your domain is something you manage at your DNS provider. Postmark’s DMARC guide is a good starting point.