What does SPF mean?

This article will explain what an SPF record is, where you can find it, and what each part means.

What is an SPF record?

An SPF record is an entry on your DNS settings on your domain that tells email providers like gmail and outlook who is allowed to send emails on your behalf.

Where can I find my SPF record?

There can only be 1 SPF record per domain and it either be shown as an SPF record in your DNS settings or as a TXT record (it can vary between providers). There are tools you can use online that show you what your SPF record currently is, such as MX Toolbox.

What does each part of the record mean?

An SPF record consists of up to 7 sections or mechanisms. All SPF records must start with v=spf1 as this identifies the TXT record as the SPF definition.

Following that you enter the values that define what is allowed to send on your behalf. You can have more than 1 of these and just add spaces between each definition;

ip4 - authorise a specific ipv4 address eg. ip4:192.168.0.1
ip6 - authorise a specific ipv6 address eg. ip6:3FFE:0000:0000:0001:0200:F8FF:FE75:50DF
a - authorise mail servers by domain eg. a:solarmora.com
mx - authorise 1 or more mail servers by domain MX record eg. mx:mail.solarmora.com
include - authorise third party email senders by domain eg. include:spf.ourmailsender.com

Finally you can tell email providers what to do if someone tries to send an email on your behalf and they do not exist on one of the previous settings. This is done with the all command which has a prefix defining what it should do;

-all - if the rules do not match then mark this email as a hardfail, this will mean emails go to spam
~all - if the rules do not match then mark this email as a softfail, this will usually mean emails go to inbox but will be marked as suspicious
?all - all rules are ignored, this is a dangerous setting and should not be used

Example SPF records

Here are a few examples of SPF records for popular providers such as gmail and outlook and how to make sure Transpond is included on them

Gmail - v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all - if you wanted to include transpond in your SPF record you would add another include: block and it would look like this v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:spf.ourmailsender.com ~all
Outlook - v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com ~all - if you wanted to include transpond in your SPF record you would add another include: block and it would look like this v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:spf.ourmailsender.com ~all

Why do my Transpond emails go to spam?

The best way to ensure SPF will not cause your emails to go to spam is to add our servers to the record using an include block using include:spf.ourmailsender.com

If you do not have that include block added and have the -all rule added then emails will go to spam, you can change it to ~all to help mitigate this.