# MX record

An MX record is the DNS record naming a host that accepts mail for a domain, with a preference number that orders the candidates.

Date: 2026-09-10

An MX record is the DNS record naming a host that accepts mail for a domain, with a preference number that orders the candidates — lower is tried first. A domain may publish several, and the set of them is the first thing any verification reads.

## What Spaw answers

`mx_found` says whether a host that can accept mail was found. `mx_provider` names the operator behind the hosts, recognised from their patterns — Google, Microsoft, Proton, Fastmail, Mimecast and the rest each have a page under [email providers](/email-providers).

Three reasons come straight out of this step: [`no_mx_records`](/docs/reasons/no_mx_records) when DNS returns neither an MX nor an A record, [`mx_unresolvable`](/docs/reasons/mx_unresolvable) when every published target fails to resolve or points somewhere that cannot receive mail from the internet, and [`null_mx`](/docs/reasons/null_mx) when the domain publishes the standard "no mail here" record.

## What it cannot tell you

An MX record is a claim about the domain, not about a mailbox. It is checked live on every lookup rather than read from a cache, because DNS is the one part of the answer that costs nothing to get right and changes without warning.

Reference: https://spaw.co/glossary/mx-record