An MX (Mail Exchange) record is a fundamental DNS record that specifies the mail server responsible for accepting email messages on behalf of a domain name. Without a valid MX record, your domain cannot receive emails, and senders will receive a bounce-back or delivery failure notification.
Not receiving emails? Check if your MX records and priorities are configured correctly.
Unlike A records which directly map a name to an IP address, an MX record points to the hostname of a mail server (e.g., mail.example.com). When someone sends an email to user@example.com, their mail server queries the DNS for the MX records of example.com to find out where to deliver the message.
MX records also use a preference value (priority). If a domain has multiple MX records, the sending server will attempt to deliver the email to the server with the lowest preference number first (e.g., Priority 10). If that server is down, it will try the next lowest number (e.g., Priority 20). This provides built-in redundancy and failover for email systems.
No. According to RFC standards, an MX record must always point to a hostname (a domain name), never directly to an IPv4 or IPv6 address. That hostname must then have its own A Record or AAAA Record resolving to the actual IP address.
No, this is a very common and critical misconfiguration. An MX record must point to a hostname that has an A or AAAA record. Pointing an MX record to a CNAME Record violates SMTP protocols and can cause severe email delivery failures.
It is highly recommended to have at least two MX records pointing to different mail servers for redundancy. If you only have one MX record and that mail server goes offline, incoming emails will be delayed or bounced.
If multiple MX records have the exact same preference value, the sending mail server will distribute the load among them randomly. This is a basic form of load balancing for incoming email.