DNS & mail

• Mail records (MX), which tell other mail servers where to deliver your email: whether they disappear, or move to another mail provider. Servers swapped within a provider we know (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Zoho Mail, Proton Mail, Fastmail) don't count as a move. For any other provider each mail server counts on its own, so a new server name is a change; a new priority on the same servers isn't.
• SPF and DMARC, two TXT records that keep your email out of spam. SPF lists the servers that may send email for your domain; DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with email that fails.
• Name servers (NS), without which nothing on your domain works.
• The site's IP address (A and AAAA records), so a move nobody planned doesn't go unnoticed. A move between Cloudflare addresses doesn't count, and behind Cloudflare a move of your own server can't be seen here, because the records show Cloudflare's addresses. Moving onto or off Cloudflare does count.
• CAA records, which say who may issue certificates for your domain.

Records that change or disappear are urgent; records of a type that had none before are a notice. Either only counts once two checks in a row see the same new records, so one odd answer doesn't raise that problem. A missing or invalid SPF or DMARC record, or a domain that never had mail records, is a notice from the first check that sees it.

Under DNS & mail in Checks & pages, Watch these record types lists all six; remove the ones you don't need (TXT covers SPF and DMARC). We only warn about the types you watch. Under the types you see the records we expect now; the site overview lists them too. The check runs every 2 hours; you can set it to hourly or daily there too. Since two checks must agree, a change shows up after two runs.

Records are changed where your domain's DNS is managed: often your host, your registrar or Cloudflare.

• Mail records lost: put back the MX records from your mail provider's help pages.
• Records changed or new: this problem shows for one check and then goes away by itself, planned or not, because the new records become the ones we expect. If the site, your email or your DNS moved, or someone set up a new service, there's nothing to do. If nobody planned it, have the records checked, also when the problem is already gone.
• SPF or DMARC: keep exactly one TXT record starting with v=spf1 that names every service sending your email, merging them when there are two. For DMARC, add a TXT record named _dmarc with v=DMARC1; p=none to start with.