Connecting your domain to an email provider

An address like sales@yourcompany.com works because your domain's MX records tell the world which servers accept its mail.

What you need from the provider

Every email provider (your hosting panel, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365) gives you a list of MX hosts and priorities, for example:

yourcompany.com.  MX  1  mx1.provider.com.
yourcompany.com.  MX  5  mx2.provider.com.

The lower number is tried first; the others are backups.

Steps

1. Create the mailboxes at the provider first, so nothing bounces during the switch.
2. In your DNS, remove the old MX records. Mixing two providers splits your mail unpredictably.
3. Add the new MX records exactly as given, including the trailing host names.
4. Wait for the old TTL to expire, then send test messages from an outside account.

Common mistakes

• Pointing MX at an IP address. MX must point to a host name.
• Making the MX target a CNAME, which many servers reject.
• Leaving an old mail A record that still receives some traffic.