Question

How to setup MX records with DigitalOcean?

I just pointed my 1and1 domain and nameservers to my new DigitalOcean droplet and the DNS propagated and the domain is pointing to the droplet just fine. Emails aren’t working though, and I have no idea what MX records to enter to make it work. I don’t really know much about networking stuff.

I setup one that I just saw somebody else mention in a post, but it doesn’t work.

http://i.imgur.com/pHqYZrx.png

Submit an answer
Answer a question...

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

Sign In or Sign Up to Answer

These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.

Flamber Hansen • March 31, 2017
Accepted Answer

@Jazcash Have you setup a mail server on your DigitalOcean droplet? Otherwise you need to point to somewhere that handles your email. DigitalOcean does not run a mail-service, like many other webhosting companies, since they provide full virtual private servers instead, so you can do it if you want.

mstaer • February 26, 2019

2019 Update

My domain was purchased with Dreamhost. I added the following to my DigitalOcean DNS to get email working again.

Type Hostname Address Priority (MX only)
MX @ mail server address 10
MX @ mail server address 20
MX mail mail server address 10
MX mail mail server address 20
A mail mail server IP address –

There will typically be two mail server addresses, like name1.mail.host.com, name2.mail.host.com.

These values should be found in your registrar’s control panel or support can give them to you.

Use this tool to verify: https://ismyemailworking.com/AdvancedTest/

Want to learn more? Join the DigitalOcean Community!

Join our DigitalOcean community of over a million developers for free! Get help and share knowledge in Q&A, subscribe to topics of interest, and get courses and tools that will help you grow as a developer and scale your project or business.

Sign up now

arworley • July 26, 2017

Thanks for the help guys! I am leaving this here for additional clarification/discussion.

Helpful reading

Note: The following solution works, but may not be optimal (with my current understanding). If it is incorrect, I will update this post.

HOSTNAME: @ MAIL PROVIDERS MAIL SERVER: mx00.1and1.com PRIORITY: 10

HOSTNAME: @ MAIL PROVIDERS MAIL SERVER: mx01.1and1.com PRIORITY: 20