How to Add a DMARC Record to Your DNS

To add a DMARC record, you create one TXT record named _dmarc in your domain's DNS, with your DMARC policy as its value. Who controls your DNS determines how the record gets there. You add it yourself in your DNS provider's control panel, send it to whoever manages your DNS, or let DMARCeye publish it in one click if your DNS is on Cloudflare.

This guide covers what a DMARC record is and where it is stored, how to create the record without writing it by hand, the three routes, and how to check that it is live. The record itself is one line of text that a tool can write for you, so the route you take depends on who controls your DNS.

What's in This Guide

• What Is a DMARC Record, and Where Is It Stored?
• How Do You Create a DMARC Record?
• How to Add a DMARC Record to Your DNS Yourself
• How to Send the Record to the Person Who Manages Your DNS
• How to Publish a DMARC Record on Cloudflare in One Click
• How Do You Check That Your DMARC Record Is Live?
• The Takeaway

What Is a DMARC Record, and Where Is It Stored?

DMARC is an email standard that lets you tell receiving mail servers what to do with messages that use your domain but fail its authentication checks. This instruction is called your policy, and your DMARC record is where you state it.

The record is stored in your domain's DNS (Domain Name System), the public set of records that tells other servers where to find your website and email. It is a TXT record, a type of DNS entry that holds plain text. Its name is _dmarc, so for a domain like example.com, receiving servers look it up at _dmarc.example.com.

Your DNS provider is the company that hosts these records and gives you a control panel where you edit them. It may be the company you bought the domain from or a separate service such as Cloudflare.

A DMARC record is a list of settings called tags, and a working record needs three of them:

• v=DMARC1 comes first and marks the text as a DMARC record.
• p= sets your policy.
• rua= gives the address where receiving mail servers send daily reports about your domain's email, as XML files.

The policy has three possible settings:

• p=none monitors failing messages without changing how receiving servers deliver them.
• p=quarantine sends them to spam.
• p=reject blocks them.

A first record therefore looks like v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:reports@example.com. Start at p=none, which leaves delivery unchanged while the reports show which services send email as your domain. Move to a stricter policy once every one of those services passes the authentication checks.

How Do You Create a DMARC Record?

You don't have to write the record by hand. DMARCeye offers two ways to create it: a free tool that needs no account, and the setup inside a DMARCeye account.

Without an Account: The Free DMARC Record Configurator

DMARCeye's free DMARC Record Configurator checks your domain's current records and walks you through creating a record you can publish. You choose the policy and type in your own email address for reports, so the daily reports arrive in your inbox as XML files.

With a DMARCeye Account

With a DMARCeye account, the setup wizard creates the record for you: adding your domain opens it, and it generates the record from your policy with DMARCeye's reporting addresses already in it. DMARCeye then receives your reports and tells you what they mean, instead of leaving you to interpret raw XML on your own. Every new account starts with a 14-day free trial, with no credit card required.

Once the domain is in DMARCeye, every later policy change happens on its DMARC Management tab, next to Reports and Settings on the domain's page. You set the policy in Step 1, and DMARCeye generates the new record in Step 2, ready to publish by any of the three routes in this guide.

Watch the whole flow in DMARCeye in 13 seconds:

How to Add a DMARC Record to Your DNS Yourself

If you can log in to your DNS provider's control panel, you can add the record yourself, with any provider that lets you edit TXT records. In DMARCeye, this route is the Publish manually option.

Here is how to add the record:

1. Copy the record value from the DMARC Record Configurator or from DMARCeye.
2. Log in to your DNS provider's control panel and open the DNS records for your domain. Depending on the provider, the page may be called DNS, DNS Settings, Zone Editor, or DNS Records.
3. Look for an existing TXT record named _dmarc. If there is one, replace its entire value with the new one; if there is none, add a new TXT record with the name _dmarc and paste the value.
4. Save the change.

Type _dmarc in the name field exactly as shown. Some DNS providers add your domain to the name automatically, so entering the full _dmarc.example.com could put your domain in the name twice.

The reason to replace an existing record, rather than add a second one, comes from RFC 9989, the current DMARC standard. When receiving servers find more than one DMARC record for a domain, the standard tells them to discard all of them. A second _dmarc record therefore does not tighten your policy: it stops receiving servers from applying either record.

How to Send the Record to the Person Who Manages Your DNS

If someone else edits your DNS, send them the record and let them add it. The person who manages your DNS might be a developer, an IT administrator, or the web agency that set up your website.

Your message needs three values:

• The type is TXT.
• The name is _dmarc.
• The value is the full record, such as v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:reports@example.com.

Ask them to replace any existing _dmarc record rather than add a second one, because receiving servers that find two DMARC records for one domain apply neither of them.

In DMARCeye, you don't write this message yourself: choose Send by email in Step 3 of the DMARC Management tab, below the generated record. Select Send email, type their address in Send to (email address), and select Send Email. DMARCeye fills in the type, the name, and the value under a short request to add the record.

You can edit the message before you send it. If your domain already has a DMARC record, change the request from adding the record to replacing the existing one.

How to Publish a DMARC Record on Cloudflare in One Click

If your domain's DNS is hosted on Cloudflare, DMARCeye's One-Click DNS Setup publishes the record for you. DMARCeye detects your DNS provider automatically, and when that provider is Cloudflare, the One-Click DNS Setup option in Step 3 confirms that your DNS is hosted there.

Select Log in to Cloudflare, sign in with the Cloudflare account that manages your domain, and authorize the connection. DMARCeye then updates the _dmarc record in your Cloudflare DNS, usually within seconds, so there is nothing to copy or type.

Cloudflare is the only DNS provider One-Click DNS Setup works with, and the option is part of the DMARCeye app. Without a DMARCeye account, you add the record in Cloudflare's control panel, the same way as with any other DNS provider.

DMARCeye's own data shows how many domains this route reaches. In DMARCeye's Q1 2026 industry report, Cloudflare has the largest share in the breakdown of domains by DNS provider: it hosts DNS for 25.54% of the domains whose provider could be identified. One-Click DNS Setup therefore covers the largest single group of domains in the report.

How Do You Check That Your DMARC Record Is Live?

A free DMARC checker shows your record the way receiving servers see it, with no account needed. Enter your domain below:

In DMARCeye, Reload DNS Records on the DMARC Management tab reads your DNS again and updates the record shown at the top of the tab. If the old record still shows in either check, wait a short while and check again, because a DNS change can take time to reach every server that looks up your domain. If you sent the record to the person who manages your DNS, an unchanged record can also mean they have not made the change yet.

The Takeaway

Adding a DMARC record takes one TXT record named _dmarc, stored in your DNS, and a route that matches who controls your DNS. The record holds your policy, starting at p=none, and you can create the record with DMARCeye's free DMARC Record Configurator or inside a DMARCeye account.

If you can edit your DNS, add it yourself and replace any existing _dmarc record instead of adding a second one. If you can't, send it to the person who manages your DNS, and if your DNS is on Cloudflare, DMARCeye publishes it in one click.

Then check that the record is live. From there, the daily reports show when every service sending your email passes, which is the moment to tighten the policy. DMARCeye reads those reports for you and generates each stricter record when you are ready.