How to Set Up Gandi Properly (2026 Guide)
Step-by-step Gandi setup for developers — including the one mistake most people make.
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What You're Setting Up
Gandi is a domain registrar and hosting provider. Most setup questions come down to DNS configuration — getting your domain to correctly point at wherever your site or email actually lives — which is where people most often get stuck, not the registration itself.
Step 1: Registration — Enable WHOIS Privacy by Default
Gandi includes WHOIS privacy protection on most TLDs without an extra fee, unlike some registrars that upsell it separately. Confirm it's active in your domain settings after purchase — leaving your personal registration details public is an easy, avoidable mistake.
Step 2: DNS — Understand What You're Actually Pointing Where
If your site is hosted elsewhere (a separate hosting provider, Shopify, Netlify, etc.), you'll set an A record or CNAME pointing to that provider's servers, not to Gandi. If your email runs through a separate provider (Google Workspace, etc.), you'll need MX records pointing there too — domain registration, hosting, and email are three separate services that all need their own DNS entries, and conflating them is the most common setup error.
Step 3: Set a Reasonable TTL Before Making Changes
If you're about to migrate hosting or email providers, lower your DNS TTL (time-to-live) a day or two in advance. This makes the actual cutover propagate faster when you make the real change, instead of visitors seeing a mix of old and new servers for up to 24-48 hours.
Step 4: Enable Auto-Renew, But Set a Calendar Reminder Too
Auto-renew prevents accidental domain expiration, but it depends on your payment method staying valid. Set a calendar reminder near your renewal date as a backup — a domain that expires and gets picked up by someone else is a much bigger problem than a renewal reminder.
Step 5: Enable Domain Lock and 2FA
Turn on registrar lock to prevent unauthorized transfers, and enable two-factor authentication on your Gandi account. Domain hijacking is rare but catastrophic when it happens — these two settings are the main defense against it.
Common Setup Mistakes
- Pointing DNS before the destination is ready — verify your hosting/email destination is actually live before repointing DNS, to avoid downtime.
- Forgetting SPF/DKIM records when switching email providers — without these, your outgoing email is more likely to land in spam.
- Not exporting DNS records before a migration — if you ever move registrars, export your current DNS zone first so nothing gets lost in translation.
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