MX records

The values

Type      Host / Name    Priority    Value / Points to
MX        @              10          mx1.mxcatch.net
MX        @              20          mx2.mxcatch.net

What each column means, because every provider names them differently:

• Host / Name — the part of the domain the record applies to. For mail at you@your-domain.com this is the apex, written @ by most providers, left blank by some, and written out in full by a few.
• Priority — lower wins. Sending servers try priority 10 first and fall back to 20. Some providers call this preference or distance.
• Value — the hostname of the mail server. Never an IP address. If your provider requires a trailing dot, use mx1.mxcatch.net.

Remove the old records first

This is the step that goes wrong most often. MX records do not replace one another — they accumulate, and the lowest priority wins. If a record from Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or a registrar's bundled mail service is still there at a lower number, it keeps taking delivery and MXcatch never sees the message.

Delete every MX record on the domain, then add the two above. Check your work from a terminal:

dig MX your-domain.com +short
# 10 mx1.mxcatch.net.
# 20 mx2.mxcatch.net.

Two lines, nothing else. If you see a third, find and remove it.

Provider notes

Cloudflare

In the DNS tab, add two MX records with the name @. The important part is elsewhere: if Email Routing is enabled for the zone, Cloudflare manages the MX records itself and will restore its own. Disable Email Routing before adding the MXcatch records, or they will be silently reverted. MX records are always DNS-only — the proxy toggle does not apply.

Namecheap

Under Advanced DNS, set Mail Settings to Custom MX first. Until you do, the MX record rows are ignored in favour of Namecheap's own email forwarding. Use @ as the host.

GoDaddy

New domains ship with MX records pointing at GoDaddy's own mail product. Delete those before adding the MXcatch pair. Use @ for the name field.

TransIP

In the DNS settings, the name field for the apex is left empty rather than filled with @. Values need a trailing dot: mx1.mxcatch.net.

Google Domains / Squarespace Domains

Custom records are entered with the host left blank for the apex. Remove any preset email records before adding your own.

Amazon Route 53

Create a single MX record set for the apex containing both values, one per line, each prefixed with its priority:

10 mx1.mxcatch.net
20 mx2.mxcatch.net

DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vercel, Netlify

All four take the values as written in the table above, with @ for the apex. None of them add MX records by default, so there is usually nothing to delete.

Receiving on a subdomain

To keep your existing mail host on the apex and use MXcatch for automation, put the records on a subdomain instead:

inbound.your-domain.com.  MX  10  mx1.mxcatch.net.
inbound.your-domain.com.  MX  20  mx2.mxcatch.net.

Then add inbound.your-domain.com in MXcatch as its own domain, and address mail to anything@inbound.your-domain.com. Your apex keeps delivering to Google Workspace or wherever it goes today.

How MXcatch verifies

MXcatch resolves your domain's MX records on a schedule and marks it healthy when both expected hosts are present. The domain page shows the last check and its result, and you get an email whenever the status flips between healthy and broken — so a DNS change that quietly breaks inbound mail does not go unnoticed for a week.

Mail is only accepted for verified domains, which is what stops someone else adding your domain to their account.