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MX Lookup
MX records name the servers that receive email for a domain. Senders try them in priority order, lowest number first. Look them up to follow a mail migration, or to confirm a new provider's records are live before you switch.
About MX records
What the answer tells you
- Priority decides the order: 10 is tried before 20. Records with equal priority share the load between them.
- Each MX target must be a hostname with its own A or AAAA record — never an IP address, and never a CNAME.
- A domain with no MX records receives mail at its A record, if anything listens there. To state that a domain takes no mail at all, publish a null MX: priority 0 and the target ".".
example.com. 3600 IN MX 10 mail.example.com.
Record types
Look up any record type
Each type has a page of its own, explaining what the record does and what to look for in the answer.
- AA Record LookupIPv4 address
- AAAAAAAA Record LookupIPv6 address
- CNAMECNAME LookupAlias
- MXMX LookupMail servers
- TXTTXT Record LookupText, SPF and DMARC
- NSNS LookupNameservers
- SOASOA Record LookupZone authority
- CAACAA Record LookupCertificate authorities
- SRVSRV Record LookupService locations
- PTRReverse DNS LookupReverse DNS (PTR)
Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Email is still arriving at my old provider
- Senders cache MX records for their TTL, and some keep retrying a server they already know for a while. Once every resolver column shows the new records, new deliveries go to the new provider.
- Do I need SPF and DMARC as well?
- MX is enough to receive mail. To send it without landing in spam, publish SPF and DMARC TXT records too — check them with the TXT lookup, at the domain and at _dmarc.<domain>.
- What is DNS propagation?
- DNS does not push changes out. Each resolver keeps an answer for its TTL and only asks again once that runs out, so after a change different resolvers return old and new answers for a while. When every column here agrees with the authoritative one, the change has reached them.
- What does the authoritative column show?
- The answer from one of the domain's own nameservers, which never comes from a cache. It shows what the zone says right now; the resolver columns show what the internet has cached.