What Are MX Records?

MX records are a type of DNS record that points incoming email to your mail server.

When do I use an MX record?

MX records are used to point your domain name to the servers where your mail is handled.

Gandi, as well as most web hosts, provide mail hosting as part of their package. To link your domain to your mail hosting, just change the MX records in your domain’s zone file to be those provided by your host. Gandi adds ours automatically when you register a domain with us, as part of our default zone file.

Can I have an example of an MX record?

MX records take the following form, and there are usually more than one in a zone. As an example, here are Gandi’s MX records:

@ 10800 IN MX 10 spool.mail.gandi.net.
@ 10800 IN MX 50 fb.mail.gandi.net.

Warning

The final dot (.) at the end is required. If you leave this out, your record will not work.