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What Is an MX Record?

Learn how MX records tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain and how priority values work.

Updated August 27, 2026 5 min read
Quick Answer

An MX record tells other mail servers which hostname accepts incoming email for your domain. Lower priority numbers are normally tried first.

What an MX record does

When another server needs to deliver mail to you@example.com, it asks DNS for the MX records belonging to example.com. Those records point to the mail server or servers that should receive the message.

MX priority

Each MX record has a priority value. In normal DNS behavior, the lower number has higher preference. A domain might have a primary mail server at priority 10 and a backup at priority 20.

Hero Tip

The MX target should normally be a hostname, not an IP address. That hostname must then resolve to an address through DNS.

Example

example.com.   MX  10  mail.example.com.
mail.example.com. A    203.0.113.25

In this example, mail for example.com is delivered to mail.example.com.

Common MX problems

  • The MX record points to the wrong provider.
  • The MX hostname does not resolve.
  • Old MX records were left behind after a migration.
  • The domain has multiple records with unexpected priorities.
  • The mail server is reachable in DNS but not accepting SMTP connections.
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