No SPF Record Found

Your domain does not publish an SPF record. As a result, receiving mail servers cannot verify which servers are allowed to send email on your behalf, so even fully legitimate traffic can look indistinguishably similar to spoofed messages. This page explains what “no SPF record found” means in practice, how it impacts inbox placement, and how to safely add a correct record without breaking existing mail flows.

One-Minute Fix

Publish a single SPF record in your domain’s DNS that authorizes your email sending services. Start by listing only the providers that send mail for your primary domain, for example your hosted mailbox provider and one marketing platform, and avoid copying example SPF strings from random blogs that include IP ranges you do not control.

One-Minute SPF Fix

DNS TXT

v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all

This example allows Microsoft 365 to send email for your domain and blocks all other sources. If you use a different provider, replace include:spf.protection.outlook.com with the include mechanism recommended in that provider’s documentation and keep the -all ending so that unauthorized senders fail SPF.

Re-check SPF

Why missing SPF is a problem

Emails may fail SPF checks entirely or fall back to heuristics
Messages are more likely to land in spam or “Promotions” tabs
DMARC cannot use SPF to protect your brand from spoofing
Attackers can send mail that looks indistinguishable from you

While SPF is not strictly required, most modern mail systems expect it to be present. Large providers such as Gmail, Microsoft 365, and Yahoo use SPF as one of several inputs to decide whether to accept a message, put it in the spam folder, or reject it outright.

How SPF affects deliverability

From a deliverability perspective, SPF is your domain’s public list of allowed senders. When a message arrives claiming to be from your domain, the receiving server checks the connecting IP and compares it against the mechanisms in your SPF record. If there is no record at all, the server has less confidence that the message is genuine, so aggressive spam filters will often downgrade or quarantine it, especially for bulk or marketing campaigns.

SPF also feeds into DMARC alignment. When DMARC is configured to require SPF alignment, passing SPF on your legitimate traffic makes it easier for providers to distinguish between real mail and phishing that spoofs your domain. That means fewer false positives for marketing campaigns and a clearer reputation signal for the IPs and services that you actually use.

Common causes of “No SPF record found”

The SPF TXT record was created on www.example.com instead of the root example.com zone.
Your DNS provider split a long SPF string into multiple TXT records instead of one logical SPF policy.
A previous SPF record was deleted during a DNS cleanup or migration and never re-created.
Multiple SPF records were attempted and the panel silently rejected them, leaving you with no valid v=spf1 policy at all.
DNS changes are still propagating and the new record is not yet visible to external resolvers.

What we checked

We queried your domain’s DNS for TXT records and searched for an SPF record starting with v=spf1.

If your DNS provider splits long TXT values into multiple segments, we combine them to reconstruct the full SPF string before checking it. We only look at live DNS, so if you recently added a record but your authoritative name servers have not been updated yet, this page will continue to show “no SPF record found” until propagation completes.

Live DNS lookup. No assumptions. No cached results.

Next steps

Confirm that the SPF record is created as a TXT record on the root of your sending domain, for example example.com, not just www.example.com.
Check that there is exactly one SPF record and that it begins with v=spf1.
Allow up to 24 hours for DNS propagation, then re-run an external SPF check to confirm the record is visible.

Related SPF fixes

Fix “multiple SPF records found” for your domain – when more than one SPF TXT record exists, receivers treat the policy as invalid, which can look similar to having no usable SPF at all.
Fix SPF permerror caused by too many DNS lookups – keep your mechanisms under the 10-lookup limit so SPF can be evaluated reliably.
Safely flatten SPF includes to stay within DNS limits – if you later add multiple providers, this helps prevent lookups from growing until they cause SPF permerrors.

Need a broader overview of SPF checks and how they fit with DKIM and DMARC? Return to the SPF Hub for protocol-level guidance and additional troubleshooting paths.