A lower number has higher preference. Equal priorities can be used for load distribution.
Email DNS tool
MX lookup
See which mail servers receive email for a domain and the priority order senders should use.
Quick guide
How MX priorities work
MX records tell other mail systems where to deliver messages for your domain. Lower priority numbers are tried first, with higher numbers acting as fallback routes when needed.
The MX target should be a hostname, not an IP address.
TTL controls how long resolvers may cache the record before asking again.
MX records are queried from DNS and sorted by priority so the preferred and fallback mail exchangers are easy to see.
- Checking where a domain receives email
- Troubleshooting mail-routing changes
- Confirming expected backup mail servers
Terminal shortcut
Prefer the command line?
Look up mail exchangers from the Terminal.
> mx example.com
Run in Terminal ->