Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email authentication standard used to prevent sender address forgery. By authenticating sender's mail server, the SPF protects senders and recipients from spams and email forgery. SPF also helps emails to be delivered to user's Inbox instead of the Spam folder.

By adding an SPF record to your DNS in the form of a TXT record, you as the domain owner approves a list of senders. The public list of senders can be a list of IP addresses or subdomains that are approved to send emails on your behalf. An SPF record list all authorized hostnames and IP addresses permitted to send email.

The receiving email servers can examine email headers to cross-check if the email received is from the approved list. If not, the receiving server can mark the email as a spam and deliver the email in the Spam Folder or not deliver at all.


What are SPF records?

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records are DNS records that specify which mail servers are authorized to send email on behalf of a particular domain name. The purpose of SPF records is to prevent email spoofing, which is when someone sends an email with a fake "From" address using your domain name.

An SPF record is a type of TXT record that is added to a domain's DNS records. It specifies which IP addresses or hostnames are authorized to send email for that domain. When a receiving mail server receives an email, it checks the SPF record for the domain in the "From" address to see if the IP address of the incoming email is on the list of authorized servers. If it is not, the email may be marked as spam or rejected altogether.

SPF records are used to help reduce the amount of spam and phishing emails that use fake "From" addresses. However, they are not foolproof and should not be relied upon as the only means of protecting against email spoofing. To lookup TXT DNS records, you may use our online DNS Lookup tool.