Ever since google decided to nerf their google apps free account privileges(I created my account earlier and was grandfathered 10 free emails), I have been toying around with several other providers of email service for custom domains. I discovered that I could actually have 2 accounts with exact same email but with different SMTP providers. At this point, I'm not sure if there is any practical use for this hack.
How to get 2 inboxes with same email address
1. Find a second email provider and register an account, Microsoft in my case
2. Switch your MX records over to your second provider temporarily for validation purpose
- Start creating email accounts with your second provider
- Switch your MX records back to your primary provider
You might be able to get away with adding a low priority MX server for your second provider but Microsoft required me to list only their servers in my records so I had no choice but to remove my google records. While step 2-4 are ongoing, you might lose some mails as emails might be redirected to your second provider. After all is done, all emails will be received by your primary provider but you can still send out emails from your secondary provider.
Have fun!