DMARC Record Lookup Tool

What is a DMARC Record?

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is an email authentication protocol designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorized use, such as phishing and email spoofing. The DMARC policy, published as a TXT record in the DNS, tells receiving mail servers whether to accept, quarantine, or reject messages that fail authentication checks.

DMARC builds upon two existing protocols: SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). A message must pass either SPF or DKIM (and be in alignment) to pass DMARC.

Understanding DMARC Tags

A DMARC record is made up of several key-value pair tags. The two required tags are v (version) and p (policy).

• v=DMARC1: Version. This tag is required and must be the first tag in the record. It identifies the record as a DMARC policy.
• p=none|quarantine|reject: Policy. This required tag tells receivers what to do with messages that fail DMARC checks.
  • none: The monitoring-only mode. Messages are delivered normally, but reports are sent. This is used to gather data without impacting mail flow.
  • quarantine: Messages that fail are moved to the recipient's spam or junk folder.
  • reject: Messages that fail are blocked and not delivered at all. This is the most secure setting.
• rua=mailto:address@example.com: Reporting URI for Aggregate reports. Specifies the email address(es) to send aggregate DMARC reports to. These XML reports provide high-level statistics on mail traffic.
• ruf=mailto:address@example.com: Reporting URI for Forensic reports. Specifies where to send detailed forensic (failure) reports, which are redacted copies of individual emails that failed DMARC.
• pct=100: Percentage. The percentage of failing emails to which the DMARC policy should be applied (from 0 to 100). This allows for a slow rollout of the policy.
• sp=none|quarantine|reject: Subdomain Policy. Defines the policy to apply to subdomains of the main domain if they don't have their own explicit DMARC policy.
• adkim=r|s: DKIM Alignment. Specifies strict (s) or relaxed (r) alignment for DKIM. Relaxed is the default and most common setting.
• aspf=r|s: SPF Alignment. Specifies strict (s) or relaxed (r) alignment for SPF. Relaxed is the default.

How to Check Your DMARC Record

A DMARC record is a TXT record located at the subdomain _dmarc.yourdomain.com. Our tool automatically queries this specific location to find and display your domain's DMARC policy.