MX Record Lookup

MX records tell sending mail servers where to deliver email for your domain. Look up any domain's MX records across 21 global servers to confirm mail routing is set correctly and has propagated everywhere.

Global DNS Propagation

New York, USA Google	---
Chicago, USA Gcore	---
Los Angeles, USA Cloudflare	---
Toronto, Canada CIRA	---
Mexico City, MX OpenDNS	---
London, UK Quad9	---
Frankfurt, Germany DNS.Watch	---
Paris, France FDN	---
Amsterdam, NL OpenNIC	---
Moscow, Russia Yandex	---
Singapore Singtel	---
Tokyo, Japan IIJ	---
Mumbai, India Google India	---
Seoul, Korea KT	---
Dubai, UAE Etisalat	---
Sydney, Australia Telstra	---
Auckland, NZ Cloudflare	---
São Paulo, Brazil NIC.br	---
Buenos Aires, AR Telecom Arg	---
Johannesburg, ZA ISPA	---
Cairo, Egypt Telecom Egypt	---

DNS Map

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What an MX record does

An MX (Mail Exchange) record points a domain to the mail servers that accept email for it. When someone sends a message to you@example.com, their mail server looks up the MX records for example.com and connects to the host listed there. Without a valid MX record, inbound email has nowhere to go and senders get a bounce.

Each MX record has two parts: a priority number and a target hostname. The target is the mail server that receives mail. The priority sets the order sending servers try when a domain lists more than one. For a deeper explanation, read what is an MX record.

How to read the results

Each row shows one of the 21 global servers, its location, and the MX values it returned. The value column prints the priority followed by the mail server hostname, for example 10 mail.example.com. A domain often lists several MX records with different priorities.

Lower priority numbers win. A server tries the lowest number first and only falls back to higher numbers if that host is unreachable. So 10 is tried before 20. All 21 servers should return the same set of records once your change has propagated. A server still showing the old mail host is behind on propagation, not broken.

Common MX values

Most domains use a hosted email provider, so the MX targets point at that provider. Google Workspace uses smtp.google.com at priority 1. Microsoft 365 uses a target like example-com.mail.protection.outlook.com. A self-hosted setup points at your own mail host, such as 10 mail.yourdomain.com.

A domain that does not receive email can publish a "null MX" record, a single entry with priority 0 and an empty target (.). This tells senders the domain accepts no mail and stops backscatter.

Troubleshooting MX records

If email is not arriving, first confirm the MX target resolves to a real IP. An MX record must point to a hostname with its own A or AAAA record, never directly to an IP address and never to a CNAME. A CNAME target is invalid for MX and many providers will reject it.

If some servers show new records and others show old ones, the change is still propagating. MX records honor the TTL set on them, so a long TTL means a longer wait. If a server returns no records at all, the domain may have no MX published, in which case some senders fall back to the A record. Check the TXT records for SPF alongside MX so your outbound mail also passes authentication.