MX Record Lookup
Check mail server configuration for any domain.
MX Record Lookup by Domain
MX record lookup reveals which mail servers accept email for a domain and in what priority order — essential for diagnosing email delivery failures.
MX (Mail Exchange) records tell sending servers where to deliver email for a domain. When someone sends an email to [email protected], the sending server performs an MX lookup for example.com, gets the list of mail servers, and attempts delivery starting with the lowest-priority number. Our tool queries authoritative nameservers live to show current MX configuration with priority and TTL.
What is an MX Record?
An MX record is a DNS record that specifies the mail server responsible for accepting email for a domain. Multiple MX records can exist with different priorities for redundancy.
Every domain that receives email must have at least one MX record. The record value is a hostname (not an IP), like mail.example.com, which itself must have an A record. MX records have a priority field — a number where lower values indicate higher priority. Sending servers try the highest-priority server first and fall back to others if it's unavailable. This provides automatic failover for email delivery.
MX Record Priority
MX priority numbers work inversely: lower numbers mean higher priority. A server with priority 10 is tried before priority 20. Multiple servers at the same priority enable load balancing.
MX priority (also called preference) ranges from 0 to 65535. Most configurations use values like 10, 20, or 30 to allow room for future insertion. When two servers share the same priority, sending servers randomly distribute delivery attempts between them for load balancing. Common patterns: primary at 10, backup at 20. Google Workspace uses 1, 5, 5, 10, 10 across 5 servers for redundancy.
MX Records and Email Security
MX records determine where email is delivered, but SPF, DKIM, and DMARC TXT records authenticate the sender and prevent spoofing of your domain.
Checking MX records is the first step in diagnosing email problems, but authentication failures are the most common cause of email going to spam. SPF validates that the sending IP is authorized. DKIM verifies the message signature. DMARC tells receivers what to do when SPF or DKIM fails. A correctly configured domain has MX records pointing to its mail servers plus SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records that authenticate all outbound email.
Verify email server configuration and find the mail exchange records for any domain instantly.
Look up MX records nowUse Cases
Email administrators use MX lookups to verify that DNS changes to mail servers have propagated correctly. Security teams use them to confirm that no unauthorized mail servers have been added to a domain's configuration. Deliverability engineers use them during troubleshooting when email is being rejected or bouncing.