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Why Check MX Records?
Mail Exchange or MX records are what handles email delivery. When you send an email, your email server looks up the MX records of the recipient’s domain to see which server should receive the email. By using our lookup mx record tool you’ll be able to better understand how your servers connect to your mail server and fix any issues.
MX lookup tools are useful for:
- Troubleshooting: To diagnose issues with email delivery.
- Email Setup: To configure or verify email routing for a domain.
- Migration: To update records when switching email providers.
- Domain Verification: To confirm ownership of a domain for email services.
- Security: To monitor for misconfigurations or malicious redirects.
- Prevent abuse: To understand how temporary email networks are set up.
How does MX Priority work?
Each MX record points to a mail server and includes a priority value. This priority value determines the order in which mail servers should be used. The priority is a numerical value assigned to each MX record, where lower values indicate higher priority. For example, an MX record with a priority of 10 has a higher priority than one with a priority of 20.
In the following Namecheap mail server example mx1.privateemail.com has a higher priority than mx2.privateemail.com.
mx1.privateemail.com 10
mx2.privateemail.com 20
When you send an email to a server, your server will first try to delivery the email to the server with the lowest priority value (10). If it is unavailable, it will then work its way down the priority chain, until it concludes that the mail can not be delivered.
In the case that two MX records have the same priority, the sending mail server will randomly choose one of the MX records to attempt mail delivery.
How can I set up an MX Record for Subdomain?
This is absolutely possible, and often used by companies to separate user emails (e.g: domain.com) from outgoing marketing emails (e.g: e.domain.com).
Similar to setting up your usual MX records, first to go your DNS management page, then create a new MX record.
- Name: Use “subdomain.yourdomain.com” to apply the record to your subdomain domain.
- Priority: Set the priority for the mail server, such as
10. - Value: Enter the mail server address, such as
your.mailserver.com. - TTL: Set the Time to Live, which is usually set to something like 1 hour.
Using the above lookup mx record tool, you’ll then be able to verify your settings have propagated and updated successfully.
What is MX Record DNS?
MX record and MX record DNS are related but different concepts. An MX record is a type of DNS record used for routing emails. It tells mail servers which server should handle incoming emails for a particular domain. Each MX record points to a mail server responsible for processing emails for that domain, which in turn points to an IP address.
MX record DNS, on the other hand, refers to the DNS system’s role in managing and resolving these MX records. When you look up MX records, you’re querying the DNS system to find out which mail servers are set up to handle emails for a certain domain. With that in mind, MX record DNS is about the process and system that manages and interprets these MX records within the broader DNS infrastructure.
Specific MX setups for your host
How to set up MX Record for GoDaddy
Log in to your GoDaddy account or DNS provider and go to your Domain Portfolio, select the domain and then add an MX record.
- Name: Use “@” to apply the record to your root domain.
- Priority: Set the priority for the mail server, such as
10. - Value: Enter the mail server address, such as
smtp.secureserver.net. - TTL: Set the Time to Live, which is usually 1 hour.
How to set up an MX Record for Namecheap
Here’s how you can configure MX records for Namecheap:
Log in to your Namecheap account or DNS provider and navigate to the Domain List. Select the domain you wish to configure and click Manage. Add or update an MX record with the following:
- Name: Use @ to apply the record to your root domain.
- Priority: Set the priority to
10for the primary server. - Value: Enter
mx1.privateemail.comfor the primary mail server. - TTL: Set the Time to Live to
3600seconds (which is 1 hour).
Repeat the process to add the secondary MX record:
- Name: Use @ again.
- Priority: Set the priority to
20for the secondary server. - Value: Enter
mx2.privateemail.com. - TTL: Set the Time to Live to
3600seconds (which is 1 hour).
How to set up MX Records in Squarespace
Squarespace doesn’t provide email services, however they do provide DNS and hosting. You’ll first need to find the MX Records of your email provider, and then log in to Squarespace.
From here, go to your Domains page, then select the domain you want to modify, then go to DNS Settings and find or add an MX Record.
Why does DNS and MX take a long time to update?
DNS operates at a global scale, with lots of servers around the world needing to update their records. When updating DNS or MX records, these changes need to propagate - or update - to all relevant DNS servers worldwide. This can take time as each server updates its records at different intervals. The Time To Live (TTL) plays a part in stating how long each server should cache the value for, however set a TTL too low and your visitors will always be fetching the latest values, but set it too long and any DNS changes you might make could take a long time to update. To verify that the records have updated successfully, use the lookup mx record tool which will provide you all the information you need to ensure everything is set up as it should be.