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Custom domain and email

Why connecting the site does not touch email and which records must stay

2 min read Admin panel demo
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Custom domain and email

What connecting does not touch#

The domain's email and its site are different DNS records. Email lives in MX records (where to deliver mail) and TXT records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC — who may send mail on behalf of the domain). Connecting the site adds only its own records — for the site address (www, menu or the root), ownership and the certificate — and does not change a single email record. On the root domain an ALIAS/ANAME record and MX live side by side without problems.

On the first step the wizard sees whether the domain has email and says "email will keep working".

Records you must not delete#

At the provider delete only records on the name you are connecting, and only those the wizard named (usually old A/AAAA/CNAME of the previous site). As part of connecting the site never delete:

  • MX records;
  • TXT with v=spf1, v=DMARC1, DKIM records (names like selector._domainkey);
  • records of the names mail, smtp, imap, autodiscover, autoconfig;
  • verification TXT of other services (Google, Yandex, Microsoft).

If you move DNS to another provider (for example to connect the root via Cloudflare), make sure all these records came along: see Root domain and www.

When email depends on the site address#

A rare but dangerous case — the domain's email uses the very name you are connecting:

  • the mail server (MX) is on the same name — for example MX example.com → example.com, and you connect the root;
  • the domain has no MX at all — then mail is delivered to the address in the root A record, and replacing it "takes away" the email.

The wizard recognises this and warns (MAIL_DEPENDS_ON_CHANGED_HOST). The way out is to connect a subdomain (www, menu) or first reconfigure email at its provider so that MX points to a separate name (mail.example.com).

Email on the domain in our service#

If you want to receive and send mail from the domain's addresses right in our admin panel ("Mail" section), the domain is connected to mail separately — with its own MX, SPF and DKIM records in the "Mail domains" window. This is independent of connecting the site: you can do one without the other. More — Mail.

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