What is an MX Record?
While SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are crucial for sending emails so they don't land in Spam, MX (Mail Exchanger) records are entirely about receiving emails.
An MX record is a DNS entry that tells the entire internet precisely which mail server is responsible for accepting email messages on behalf of a recipient's domain. In postal terms, it tells the postman exactly which building is your post office.
How MX Records Work (Priorities)
You can have more than one MX record for a single domain to ensure redundancy. They are organized by a Priority number (e.g., 0, 10, 20). The sending server will always try to deliver the email to the server with the lowest priority number first. If that server is down or unreachable, it will try the next lowest number.
Example 1: Internal Mail Server
If you use Ypsilon's Plesk mail server to host your emails, your MX record typically points back to your own domain.
Priority: 10
Value: mail.yourdomain.com
Example 2: External Provider (Google)
If your website is hosted with us, but you use Google Workspace for email, you point them externally.
Priority: 1
Value: smtp.google.com
Modifying MX Records in Plesk
If you signed up for an external business email provider (like Zoho Mail, Google Workspace, or Microsoft 365), they will ask you to update your MX records to point to their servers so you can start receiving mail.
- Log into your Plesk Control Panel.
- Go to Websites & Domains, then navigate to your domain's DNS Settings.
- Locate any existing records with the Record Type
MX. - If you are moving to an external provider, you should remove or delete the default MX record pointing to
mail.yourdomain.com. - Click Add Record.
- Select MX as the Record type.
- Leave the domain prefix empty. Enter the Mail exchange server provided by your email host (e.g.,
mx.zoho.eu) and the requested Priority (e.g.,10). - Click Update to save the changes.
Any time you change an MX record, it can take anywhere from 1 to 24 hours for the changes to fully propagate across the global internet. During this period, some incoming emails might still route to the old mail server.
