An MX (Mail Exchanger) record specifies the servers that receive email for a domain. Each MX record has a priority value; lower numbers are tried first, and higher numbers act as backups.
For example, an email provider might instruct you to add MX 1 mx1.provider.com and MX 5 mx2.provider.com. MX targets must be hostnames with A/AAAA records, not IP addresses and not CNAMEs.
MX records only handle incoming mail. To improve deliverability of outgoing mail, also publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, which are TXT records.
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Related terms
- TXT record
- A TXT record stores text in DNS, widely used for domain ownership verification and email authentication like SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
- DNSSEC
- DNSSEC adds cryptographic signatures to DNS records so resolvers can verify answers are authentic and have not been forged or tampered with.
- TTL (Time to Live)
- TTL is the number of seconds a DNS record may be cached by resolvers before they must look it up again, affecting how fast changes take effect.
- Domain parking
- Domain parking means registering a domain without an active website, often showing a placeholder or ad page while it awaits use or sale.