SPF Record Lookup
Look up and analyze the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record for any domain. SPF tells receiving mail servers which IP addresses and hosts are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain.
Look up and analyze the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record for any domain. SPF tells receiving mail servers which IP addresses and hosts are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a DNS-based email authentication standard that specifies which mail servers are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain. When a receiving mail server gets an email, it checks the sending domain's SPF record to verify that the message came from an approved source. Without an SPF record, any server in the world can send email pretending to be from your domain, making you vulnerable to phishing attacks and causing your legitimate emails to land in spam folders. This tool looks up the SPF TXT record for any domain, parses each mechanism, counts DNS lookups against the 10-lookup limit defined by RFC 7208, and identifies common misconfigurations.
Enter a domain name and click "Look Up SPF Record." The tool retrieves the domain's TXT records, identifies the SPF record (the one beginning with v=spf1), and breaks it down mechanism by mechanism. Each mechanism is explained in plain English, and DNS-consuming lookups are counted against the 10-lookup limit. The policy analysis section checks whether the record ends with the recommended -all (hard fail) or a weaker ~all (soft fail), identifies known email service providers in the record, and flags deprecated mechanisms like ptr.
Always end your SPF record with -all (hard fail) once you have confirmed all legitimate sending sources are covered. Start with ~all during initial setup to avoid blocking legitimate mail while you audit. Each include, a, mx, redirect, exists, and ptr mechanism counts as one DNS lookup. Nested includes inside referenced domains also count against the total. If you are approaching 10 lookups, consider flattening your record by replacing includes with explicit ip4 entries, though this requires manual maintenance when provider IPs change. Never use +all — it allows anyone to send as your domain.
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