MX records (Mail Exchanger records) are DNS entries that tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain. When someone sends email to you@yourdomain.com, their mail server queries your domain's MX records to find out which server to deliver the message to. Getting these right is the single most important DNS configuration step for business email, without correct MX records, no email reaches your mailbox.
An MX record has three components: the host (usually @ for the root domain), a priority number, and the mail server hostname. The priority number (also called preference) tells sending mail servers which server to try first, lower numbers have higher priority. If the primary server is unavailable, the next-lowest priority server is tried.
Example: if you have two MX records, one with priority 1 and one with priority 5, all mail goes to the priority-1 server first. The priority-5 server is the fallback. Having multiple MX records with different priorities gives your email setup redundancy, critical for businesses where email downtime is costly.
To use Google Workspace for your business email, replace your existing MX records with the following. Log into your domain registrar's DNS management panel and delete any existing MX records first:
@ MX 1 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
@ MX 5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
@ MX 5 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
@ MX 10 ALT3.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
@ MX 10 ALT4.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
All five records are recommended by Google. The primary server (priority 1) handles nearly all incoming mail; the others are fallbacks in case of outages. TTL (Time To Live) can be set to 3600 (1 hour) initially. After the setup is confirmed working, you can increase it to 86400 (24 hours) for efficiency.
Microsoft 365 MX records are domain-specific, the hostname is unique to your Microsoft tenant. When you set up Microsoft 365, the admin centre shows you the exact value to use, which follows the format yourdomain-com.mail.protection.outlook.com (with dots in the domain replaced by hyphens).
You'll add a single MX record:
@ MX 0 yourdomain-com.mail.protection.outlook.com
The priority value for Microsoft 365 is 0, meaning highest priority. Microsoft uses 0 as their standard priority value. Set TTL to 3600. Microsoft's mail protection service handles redundancy on their end, so you only need one MX record, don't add multiple Microsoft MX records with different priorities unless specifically instructed.
If you're using the email accounts included with your web hosting (cPanel-based), your MX records should point to your hosting server. This is typically already configured when your domain is set up with a hosting provider. The default MX record looks like:
@ MX 0 mail.yourdomain.com
Where mail.yourdomain.com is a subdomain that resolves to your hosting server's IP. You can verify this in cPanel under Email > MX Entry. If your domain registrar's DNS points elsewhere (e.g., still at a previous provider), you need to update the MX records to point to your hosting server's mail hostname.
You change MX records wherever your domain's DNS is managed. This is usually your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, etc.), but it may be different if you've pointed your nameservers to a third-party DNS provider (Cloudflare, AWS Route 53, etc.). Log into whichever service controls your nameservers, that's where your MX records live.
To find who manages your DNS, check your current nameservers using our WHOIS Lookup or your registrar's lookup tool. If your nameservers are ns1.cloudflare.com, change your MX records in Cloudflare. If they're ns1.yourhostingprovider.com, change them in your hosting control panel. Changing MX records at your registrar when Cloudflare controls your DNS has no effect.
MX records handle incoming mail. To make outbound mail trustworthy, you need three additional DNS records. SPF (TXT record): specifies which servers can send mail for your domain. For Google Workspace: v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all. For Microsoft 365: v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all.
DKIM: a cryptographic signature added to your outbound mail. Google Workspace generates the key in Admin Console > Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > Authenticate email. You'll add a TXT record to DNS with the key value. Microsoft 365 DKIM is configured in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal under Policies > Email authentication settings.
DMARC: instructs receiving servers what to do with mail that fails SPF or DKIM. Start with: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourdomain.com, this monitors without enforcing. After 2–4 weeks of reviewing reports, move to p=quarantine or p=reject.
After changing MX records, the changes propagate across the internet's DNS servers. Most records update within 1–4 hours. The maximum is determined by the TTL of the old records, if your old TTL was set to 86400 (24 hours), it can take up to 24 hours for all DNS servers worldwide to reflect the change.
To speed up future changes: lower your MX record TTL to 300 (5 minutes) at least 24–48 hours before you plan to switch. Once the change is made and confirmed, set TTL back to 3600 or higher. During propagation, monitor incoming email closely, some messages may still arrive at the old server. Keep the old email account accessible during this window to catch anything delivered there.
Use our MX Checker to verify your MX records are resolving correctly. Enter your domain and it shows your current MX records, their priorities, and whether the hostnames resolve to valid mail servers. For Google Workspace, Google's admin console also includes a setup verification step that checks your MX records automatically. For Microsoft 365, the Microsoft 365 admin centre checks all required DNS records including MX, SPF, DKIM, and autodiscover.
HostBible domain registrations include a full DNS management panel, add, edit, and remove MX records, SPF, DKIM, and all other record types with no restrictions.
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