Set up email records

There are three reasons to set up email records for your domain:

• To make sure your domain can receive email.
• To make sure your domain can send and receive email.
• To prevent other email senders from spoofing your domain.

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Receive email

If you only need to receive emails, Cloudflare offers Email Routing for free email forwarding to custom email addresses.

Send and receive email

To send and receive emails from your domain, you need:

• An SMTP provider.
• To create two DNS records within Cloudflare.

To route emails through Cloudflare and to your mail server:

1. Get the IP address and MX record details from your SMTP provider (vendor-specific guidelines).

2. Add an A or AAAA record for your mail subdomain that points to the IP address of your mail server.

   Type	Name	IPv4 address	Proxy status
   A	mail	192.0.2.1	DNS only

   API example

   Request

   curl "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/<ZONE_ID>/dns_records" \
   --header "x-auth-email: <EMAIL>" \
   --header "x-auth-key: <API_KEY>" \
   --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
   --data '{
     "type":"A",
     "name":"www.example.com",
     "content":"192.0.2.1",
     "ttl":3600,
     "proxied":false
   }'

   Response

   {
     "result": {
       "id": "<ID>",
       "zone_id": "<ZONE_ID>",
       "zone_name": "example.com",
       "name": "www.example.com",
       "type": "A",
       "content": "192.0.2.1",
       "proxiable": true,
       "proxied": false,
       "ttl": 1,
       "locked": false,
       "meta": {
         "auto_added": false,
         "managed_by_apps": false,
         "managed_by_argo_tunnel": false,
         "source": "primary"
       },
       "comment": null,
       "tags": [],
       "created_on": "2023-01-17T20:37:05.368097Z",
       "modified_on": "2023-01-17T20:37:05.368097Z"
     },
     "success": true,
     "errors": [],
     "messages": []
   }

3. Add an MX record that points to that subdomain.

   Type	Name	Mail server	TTL
   MX	@	mail.example.com	Auto

   API example

   Request

   curl "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/<ZONE_ID>/dns_records" \
   --header "x-auth-email: <EMAIL>" \
   --header "x-auth-key: <API_KEY>" \
   --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
   --data '{
     "type":"MX",
     "name":"example.com",
     "content":"mail.example.com",
     "ttl":3600
   }'

   Response

   {
     "result": {
       "id": "<ID>",
       "zone_id": "<ZONE_ID>",
       "zone_name": "example.com",
       "name": "example.com",
       "type": "MX",
       "content": "mail.example.com",
       "priority": 10,
       "proxiable": false,
       "proxied": false,
       "ttl": 3600,
       "locked": false,
       "meta": {
         "auto_added": false,
         "managed_by_apps": false,
         "managed_by_argo_tunnel": false,
         "source": "primary"
       },
       "comment": null,
       "tags": [],
       "created_on": "2023-01-17T20:54:23.660869Z",
       "modified_on": "2023-01-17T20:54:23.660869Z"
     },
     "success": true,
     "errors": [],
     "messages": []
   }

Note

If you encounter issues with your email setup, refer to our troubleshooting guide.

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Prevent domain spoofing

There are several DNS mechanisms to prevent others from sending emails on behalf of your domain. These all work as TXT records that need to be added on your domain:

• Sender Policy Framework (SPF) ↗: List authorized IP addresses and domains that can send email on behalf of your domain.
• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) ↗: Ensure email authenticity by cryptographically signing emails.
• Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) ↗: Receive aggregate reports about your email traffic and provide clear instructions for how email receivers should treat non-conforming emails.

Note

For additional background on email security records, refer to the introductory blog post ↗.

Configure email security records

Refer to Security records to learn how to set up your email security records.