In this tutorial:
How MX Records Work View Current MX Records InMotion MX Records Obtain Third Party Records Change MX records
How Do MX Records Work?
MX Records (Mail Exchanger Records) are a type of DNS record that determine which mail server is responsible for handling the email for a specific domain.
An MX record is configured to point to a canonical (or CNAME) record, such as example.com or mail.example.com. The CNAME record’s hostname is configured in another record known as an A Record (Address Record), which points to the specified IP address. That IP address is the server that will be handling the email for your domain.
It is possible to configure multiple MX Records for a domain. These are set into a chronological order, where the lowest number receives priority. When deliverying email for a domain configured with multple MX records, the server with the highest priority (lowest value) will be used first to attempt delivery. If that server does not respond, further attempts are made to the next MX record (by priority), and so on. Companies that service large email server farms, such as Google, will have several servers to handle massive amounts of incoming emails.
How Do I View My Current MX Records?
- Domain is pointed to InMotion nameservers AND has been added to cPanel
- If you want to review your current MX records, you may view them by using the Zone Editor in the cPanel.
NOTICE: MX Records were previously managed through the cPanel Email subheader MX Entry section, but this option was moved to the DNS Zone editor within the updated version of cPanel.
- Domain is pointed to a third party nameserver
- If you want to review your current MX records, you may review them by using a third party lookup tool.
If you would like a visual representation of how your domain is routing website and email traffic, you can use our Visual Domain Routing Tool.
Hosting Your Email with InMotion Hosting
If your domain is pointed to the InMotion nameservers and you have added it to your cPanel account, by default, your domain should be routing email through your server with InMotion.
Setting your MX Records to work with your InMotion hosting server is very simple. Use the example below as a template for your settings. Simply replace the example.com domain with your actual domain name. Note that you will only need a single MX record.
| Priority | Mail Server |
|---|---|
| 0 | mail.example.com |
Using Third Party MX Records
You are free to use a different mail server but still host your website with InMotion Hosting. This can be accomplished through changing your MX records. Making changes to your MX records will still allow you to host your website with us, but your email at a third party server such as Google.
The first step in routing your mail to a third party is the obtain the MX records that party wants you to use. In this example, we’ll use Google. Google would provide you with a list of MX records to enter in. This must be entered correctly for the email to function properly:
NOTE: In order for you to use G Suite MX records with Google, you will need to create a G Suite account. Please visit this link to get a G Suite account.
| Priority | Mail Server |
|---|---|
| 1 | ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
| 5 | ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
| 5 | ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
| 10 | ALT3.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
| 10 | ALT4.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
The MX records above are an example of the MX records you would need to use to set up G Suite. (For more info, please see G Suite MX record values)
Changing your Domain’s MX Record
When changing your domain’s MX records in cPanel you will want to use the Zone Editor. For detailed instructions for editing MX records, please see How to Set MX Records using the Zone Editor.
Please check the next article on Creating an Autoresponder in cPanel. If you missed our previous article, please see the How to log into Webmail tutorial. For more information on this course please visit Using Email. If needed, see this article on how to point your emails to an external IP address.