Cloudflare proxy on MX or mail subdomain, mail does not work
Cloudflare only proxies HTTP/HTTPS traffic. MX records, A records for mail hosts (smtp, imap, pop, mail) and SRV records must stay DNS-only (grey cloud). An orange cloud on a mail record breaks delivery instantly.
Try this first
- 1Open the DNS table in Cloudflare and explicitly set to grey (DNS-only): mx targets, mail., smtp., imap., pop., autodiscover., autoconfig.
- 2MX records contain a hostname, not an IP. The A record it points to is what you grey.
- 3For SPF, DKIM, DMARC, Null-MX, BIMI: those are TXT records, cloud status does not apply.
- 4Test after the change with telnet or swaks to ports 25 and 587 that the mail server is reachable again.
- 5If you have no own mail server and use M365/Google Workspace, you do not need to touch mail A records at all, only MX and TXT.
When to bring us in
If mail delivery remains stuck after the cloud fix, we can walk through PTR, SPF, DKIM and DMARC together to untangle the stack.
See also
- Domain expires tomorrow and nobody saw the emailAn expired domain doesn't transfer instantly. There's a redemption window, but you pay extra.
- Unsure whether to enable auto-renewDisabling auto-renew only makes sense for domains you'll truly drop. For anything live, just keep it on.
- New registrar asks for auth code, can't find itEPP code or transfer code is the password to move a domain from registrar A to B.
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