About MXHelper
A free DNS and email diagnostic tool that explains what's wrong with your domain in plain English — and tells you exactly how to fix it at your specific provider.
Who builds MXHelper
MXHelper is an independent project, built and maintained by a developer with years of hands-on experience configuring DNS, MX records, and email authentication for production domains. The tool grew directly out of that work — and out of explaining to non-technical people why their mail was bouncing or landing in spam. The same explanations, minus the jargon, are what power MXHelper.
It is run by a real person, not a faceless content farm. Every explanation and fix instruction on the site is written and reviewed by hand, drawn from hands-on experience with the mail providers and DNS hosts the tool detects.
Why this exists
Most DNS diagnostic tools are excellent if you already know what SPF, DKIM, and DMARC mean. If you don't, they hand you a wall of jargon and leave you to figure out the rest.
MXHelper takes the same diagnostic data and translates it. Instead of "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:... not found," you get "Your domain has no DMARC policy, which makes it easier for spammers to spoof your email address — here's the exact record to add, and step-by-step instructions for your DNS provider."
What it checks
- Email authentication: SPF, DKIM, DMARC
- Mail routing: MX records, auto-detected mail provider (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho, etc.)
- General DNS health: A, AAAA, NS, TXT records
- DNS provider detection: so fix instructions are tailored to Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, or wherever your records actually live
Everything runs in real time against live DNS — no cached or stale data.
How MXHelper works
When you check a domain, MXHelper queries authoritative DNS servers directly and asynchronously, reading the same records any mail server would see. It identifies your mail provider and DNS host from the fingerprints in your records, checks your sending IP's reverse DNS and reputation against major blocklists, and looks up your registrar. It then scores the whole configuration from 0 to 100 against current best practices — including the sender requirements Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft now enforce — and turns every problem into a concrete, provider-specific fix.
The analysis runs server-side and finishes in seconds. There's nothing to install and no browser extension to add.
Accuracy and your privacy
Because lookups run live every time, results reflect your DNS as it stands right now — useful when you've just changed a record and want to confirm it propagated. MXHelper does not store the domains you check or build a profile of your activity. There's no account to create and no login. For the full details of what is and isn't collected, see our privacy policy.
Free, forever
MXHelper has no signup, no paywall, no "premium" tier hidden behind features that should be free. The site is supported by unobtrusive ads. If you find it useful, the most helpful thing you can do is share it with someone else who's been struggling with email deliverability.
What's next
The tool will keep getting better at the parts that matter: more provider-specific fix instructions, smarter scoring, monitoring (so you get notified when something breaks instead of finding out from a customer), and educational content explaining the underlying concepts. If there's a feature you'd find useful, send me a note — I read every message.
Get in touch
Feedback, feature requests, bug reports, or just a hello: [email protected]