Is Cloudflare your DNS host?
Cloudflare is where a domain's records live when its nameservers point at Cloudflare, whoever you bought the domain from. Sign in at dash.cloudflare.com: if the domain is listed there and its status reads Active, yes. Its Overview page names the two nameservers it is served from, and they read conrad.ns.cloudflare.com, pola.ns.cloudflare.com and so on. If your registrar still lists its own nameservers instead, the records go there, and that host's guide is the one to follow.
Half a domain is the case worth checking for. A domain part-way through a move is delegated to two companies at once, and records added to one of them are answered by neither reliably. Finish the move before you start.
Where the records go
- Sign in at dash.cloudflare.com and choose the domain.
- In the sidebar, open DNS → Records.
- Press Add record. The form opens above the list of existing records. Type comes first, and the fields under it are named after the type you choose.
What Cloudflare calls each field
Cloudflare gives the value field a different name for each kind of record, which is why the same record looks like three different forms. It is one field.
| On imado | On Cloudflare | What to put |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Type | Choose it first: the fields under it are named after the type you picked. |
| Host | Name | Only the part before your domain — Cloudflare adds .example.com itself. For the MX record it is @, which means the domain itself. |
| Value | Content / Target / Mail server | One field under three names: Content on a TXT record, Target on a CNAME, Mail server on the MX. Paste the value bare — Cloudflare puts the quotes on a TXT record itself. |
| Priority | Priority | Its own field, beside Mail server. 10. |
| — | TTL | Leave it at Auto. |
| — | Proxy status | On the three CNAME records only, and it must read DNS only — grey cloud, not orange. Cloudflare never proxies a TXT or MX record, so those rows have no toggle. |
What to put for the domain itself
One record — the MX record, the one that makes mail arrive — belongs to the domain itself rather than to anything in front of it. Every DNS panel has its own way of saying that, and instructions written for a different one are the usual reason a correct-looking MX record receives nothing.
On Cloudflare, type @. Cloudflare's Name field takes either a subdomain or the zone apex, and @ is how it writes the apex. A guide written for a panel that wants the field left blank will tell you to leave it default or empty; do not — fill it in with @.
Do not type the domain in full. Cloudflare appends your domain to the name you give, so example.com there becomes example.com.example.com — a name nothing queries, saved without a warning.
The other five records all have something in front of the domain — _imado-challenge, _dmarc, the three _domainkey names — and those go in Name exactly as shown, with no domain after them.
Add the six records
First the ownership record; then, once imado shows it as Added, the other five. Each row is one press of Save.
| Type | Name | Content / Target / Mail server | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| TXT | _imado-challenge | imado-verification=… | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| MX | @ | inbound-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com | 10 |
| TXT | _dmarc | v=DMARC1; p=none; | — |
What gets in the way
- The orange cloud on the three CNAME records. Cloudflare turns proxying on by default, and a proxied record answers with Cloudflare's own address rather than the one you typed. The signing check then fails with nothing on the page looking wrong: the record is listed, the value is right, and mail you send still lands in spam. Set Proxy status to DNS only — grey cloud, not orange — on all three. The TXT and MX records have no toggle at all; Cloudflare never proxies those.
- Email Routing holding the MX records. If Cloudflare's own Email Routing is on for this domain, the MX records are its —
route1.mx.cloudflare.netand its siblings — and they are locked, so DNS → Records will not let you delete or replace them. Cloudflare does not run Email Routing alongside another mail provider. Switch it off first: Compute → Email Service → Email Routing, the domain, Settings, Disable Email Routing. The records it added go with it, and the same addresses can be created on imado afterwards. - Quotes appearing around the DMARC value. Paste
v=DMARC1; p=none;exactly as shown, with no quotes of your own. Cloudflare adds the double quotes itself, so the saved record reads"v=DMARC1; p=none;"in the list. That is the same record, stored correctly — not a second one to go and fix. - Records Cloudflare imported when the domain was added. Cloudflare scans the old DNS host when you onboard a domain and copies what it finds, MX records included. If mail used to go somewhere else, that provider's MX records may still be sitting in the list. Delete them: two sets of MX records on one domain send some mail each way.
Then, on imado
Back on your domain's page, press Check again. Cloudflare publishes a change in well under a minute, which makes it the quickest of the hosts here. When the ownership record is Added, the other records appear; when those are, create the mailbox and send yourself a message — steps 5 and 6 of the setup.
Cloudflare's own guide to managing records is at developers.cloudflare.com.
