What are MX Records?

MX (Mail Exchange) records are DNS entries that specify which mail servers are responsible for receiving email on behalf of a domain. When someone sends an email to user@example.com, the sending server queries the MX records for example.com to find out where to deliver the message.

Each MX record has a priority value — a lower number means higher preference. If the primary mail server is unavailable, the sending server falls back to the next one in priority order.