How to handle SSL certificates for e-mail when my A-record points to Shopify.

Technical Q&A
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Topic summary

Issue: After pointing the domain’s A-record to Shopify for the website, Plesk (which still hosts the domain’s email) can no longer issue/renew Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates for email-related subdomains (mail., webmail., imap., smtp.) or the main domain.

Context/terms:

  • A-record: DNS record that maps a domain to an IP (now set to Shopify).
  • Plesk: hosting control panel managing the domain and email services.
  • Let’s Encrypt: free SSL/TLS certificate authority.

Current development: The site owner reports that certificate issuance is now blocked and Shopify support could not assist. One reply advises contacting Plesk support since Plesk is hosting the domain/email and manages the certificates.

Outcome/status:

  • No concrete technical fix proposed in-thread.
  • No changes or decisions recorded beyond the suggestion to involve Plesk support.
  • Discussion remains open; key question (how to obtain SSL for email subdomains while the apex points to Shopify) is unresolved.
Summarized with AI on December 28. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hi everyone,

Since a couple of months I am hosting a Shopify website. In order for my domain to point to Shopify I had to change the A-record of my domain. Now everything worked fine for the first couple of months but now I have the following issue:

I am using Plesk to manage my domain and host my domain’s e-mails. I used to have a Lets Encrypt SSL certificate that is used for the mail.domain.name and webmail.domain.name, as well as domain.name.. Now that my domain.name point to Shopify it is no longer possible to generate a Lets Encrypt SSL certificate for mail.domain.name and webmail.domain.name (or imap.domain.name / smtp.domain.name ). How did you handle this curious situation? Shopify support has no clue.

2

Hey, @epicbuilds

I would recommend reaching out to Plesk in regards to the SSL certifricate since they are the platform that is being used to host your domain. If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.