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Setting up professional email on your own domain

An address like hello@yourbusiness.com builds trust. Here are the DNS records that make it work and keep your messages out of spam folders.

ChronoHosting team 2 min read

An address on your own domain looks more professional than a free webmail account, and it stays yours if you change providers. Setting it up comes down to a handful of DNS records.

MX records: where your mail is delivered

MX records tell the rest of the internet which servers receive email for your domain. Your email provider gives you the values to enter. Once they are in place, new messages start arriving within minutes to a few hours, depending on DNS caching.

SPF, DKIM and DMARC: proving your mail is legitimate

  • SPF lists the servers allowed to send email for your domain.
  • DKIM adds a cryptographic signature to each message, so receivers can check it wasn't altered.
  • DMARC tells receivers what to do with messages that fail these checks, and sends you reports.

Without these records, your messages are far more likely to land in spam, and anyone could send email pretending to be you. Major mailbox providers now require them from senders who send in volume.

example.com.                    MX   10 mx1.mail-provider.example.
example.com.                    TXT  "v=spf1 include:_spf.mail-provider.example ~all"
selector1._domainkey.example.com. TXT "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=MIIBIjANBgkq…"
_dmarc.example.com.             TXT  "v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com"
Example DNS records. The exact values come from your email provider.

A few good habits

  • Create role addresses such as contact@ or billing@ rather than sharing personal mailboxes.
  • Turn on two-factor authentication for every mailbox.
  • Start DMARC in monitoring mode (p=none), then tighten it once your reports look clean.
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