MX Lookup: Check Your Domain's Mail Servers
An MX lookup shows which mail servers receive email for your domain. Enter your domain above to look up your MX records from live DNS and identify your email provider.
MX (Mail Exchange) records route incoming email to the right servers. They also reveal which provider handles your mail, which is the starting point for setting up email authentication correctly.
What an MX lookup shows
The lookup reads the MX records published in your domain's DNS and reports the servers that handle your incoming mail.
- The mail servers (hostnames) that accept email for your domain
- Their priority order, which decides the delivery sequence
- The provider behind them, since Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and others have recognisable MX hostnames
- Whether MX records exist at all, since without them your domain cannot receive email reliably
How to read your MX lookup results
Each MX record has a hostname and a priority number. Lower numbers are tried first; higher numbers are backups. Most providers give you one or more hostnames to publish exactly as supplied.
The hostnames tell you who runs your mail, which matters for authentication, because SPF and DKIM are configured per provider.
Missing MX records mean inbound mail has nowhere to go, a common cause of email that silently never arrives.
Why MX records matter for email security
An MX lookup is the first step in securing email, because it identifies every provider that handles your mail. Each of those providers then needs SPF and DKIM set up so your outbound mail is authenticated.
Once you know your providers, you can publish a DMARC record that covers them and stops anyone else from sending as you. Our guide to DMARC explains that next step.
If you would rather have your senders mapped and secured for you, readyDMARC handles it end to end.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I look up MX records?
Enter your domain in the lookup above. It reads your MX records from live DNS and lists each mail server with its priority, plus the provider behind them. You can also query your domain's MX records manually through a DNS tool.
What do MX record priorities mean?
Each MX record has a priority number. Sending servers try the lowest number first and use higher numbers as backups if the first is unavailable. Many providers publish several MX hosts at different priorities for resilience.
What is a good MX record setup?
A good setup uses exactly the MX hostnames your email provider supplies, published at the priorities they specify, with no leftover records from a previous provider. Stale or duplicate MX records can misroute mail or cause delivery problems.
Why does my domain have no MX records?
No MX records usually means email was never set up for the domain, or the records were removed. Without them, sending servers have nowhere to deliver your mail, so incoming email fails or silently disappears. Publishing your provider's MX records fixes it.
An MX lookup shows who handles your email and is the starting point for securing it. Run the lookup above to see your mail servers, plus your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC status.
Once you know your providers, readyDMARC sets up authentication across all of them so only you can send as your domain.
More free tools
DMARC Checker
Free DMARC checker. Check your domain's DMARC record, see your policy in plain English, and find out if your domain is protected from email spoofing.
Run the check→SPF Checker
Free SPF checker. Check your domain's SPF record, see which servers can send your email, and find errors like too many lookups or an unsafe +all.
Run the check→DKIM Checker
Free DKIM checker. Check your domain's DKIM record across common provider selectors and confirm your emails carry a valid DKIM signature, plus SPF and DMARC.
Run the check→A checker shows the gap. Fixing it safely is the hard part.
Email authentication is fiddly and easy to break. One wrong record can let spoofers through or stop your real email arriving. Our specialists configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC and roll it out safely, so it's set up correctly from the start.