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Using your own email provider (BYO email)

Maxim Tsitsejev
Updated

Applies to: All plans.

Before you start: you need your client area login at my.maxinodes.com, your domain already pointing at the Maxinodes nameservers, and the DNS records from your existing email provider (their MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC values).

You can keep your email exactly where it is and still host your website with us. Bring-your-own (BYO) email is welcome at Maxinodes — your hosting and your email are independent. To make it work, point your domain's mail records (MX, plus SPF, DKIM and DMARC) at your external provider in the client area DNS manager, and leave the rest of your domain pointing at your hosting.

Maxinodes does not host mailboxes on the hosting server, and there is no cPanel webmail. Whether you use our resold Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace or your own provider, your mailboxes live with that provider — the DNS records simply route mail to them.

How BYO email works

Your domain has one set of DNS records. Some of them point your website at our hosting node; others point your email at your mail provider. They do not conflict:

  • Website records (the A and AAAA records for your domain, and www) point at the Maxinodes hosting node — IPv4 185.185.49.198 and IPv6 2a00:7c80:0:286:c::10. (Customer websites are served over both IPv4 and IPv6 (dual-stack): when your domain uses our nameservers, both the A and the AAAA records are created for you — you do not have to add anything.)
  • Email records (MX, and the SPF/DKIM/DMARC TXT/CNAME records) point at your external email provider.

You manage all of these in the client area, because our DNS is managed by us, on our own nameservers. The cPanel zone editor does not control your live DNS here.

Step-by-step

  1. Get the exact mail records from your current email provider. Every provider publishes its own MX, SPF and DKIM values — copy them from that provider's admin panel or setup guide. Do not guess them.
  2. Log in to your client area at my.maxinodes.com.
  3. Go to Domains -> My Domains, open the domain, and find the DNS manager (or open the DNS records area for the matching hosting service).
  4. Add or update the MX record(s) to point at your provider's mail server, with the priority your provider specifies.
  5. Add your provider's SPF record as a single TXT record. Keep only one SPF record on the domain — if you send from more than one service, merge the include: parts into one line.
  6. Add the DKIM record(s) your provider gives you (usually CNAME or TXT), and optionally a DMARC TXT record at _dmarc (start with p=none).
  7. Save. Leave your website's A record untouched so your site keeps loading from Maxinodes.

Result: within minutes to a few hours (up to ~24–48h worst case, set by your record TTL), mail for your domain flows to your chosen provider while your website continues to load from Maxinodes.

Good to know

  • One SPF record only. A domain must have a single SPF TXT record. A second one breaks SPF.
  • No mail server names from us. There are no Maxinodes/cPanel mail server settings — your provider supplies all server and client settings.
  • Forwarding is not a mailbox. If you only need to relay an address to an existing external inbox, use registrar/client-area email forwarding instead (see the forwarding guide below).
  • Managed customers: on Managed plans we can configure your email DNS for you as part of guided email setup and free migration — just ask support and share your provider's records.

Troubleshooting this task

  • Mail still going to the old place? DNS changes are not instant. Wait for propagation, then re-check the MX record.
  • Outgoing mail landing in spam? Confirm your provider's SPF and DKIM records are present and correct, and that there is only one SPF record.
  • Website went down after editing DNS? Check you did not change or remove the A record pointing at 185.185.49.198.
  • Can't see the records save? Make sure you edited them in the client area DNS manager, not the cPanel zone editor — the cPanel editor does not control live DNS here.

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