imado
Get started

GuidesPorkbun

Set up email on a Porkbun domain

Where Porkbun keeps a domain's DNS records, what its form calls each field, and the two things it sets up on a new domain that get in the way. About ten minutes at Porkbun, in two visits.

imado gives a domain you already own a working mailbox — hello@yourdomain.com, sent and received from a web inbox, 3 domains free. This page is the Porkbun half; the whole setup is six steps.

Is Porkbun your DNS host?

If you bought the domain at Porkbun and have not changed its nameservers, yes. On the domain's page under Domain Management, the nameservers read curitiba.ns.porkbun.com, fortaleza.ns.porkbun.com and so on. If they name another company — ns.cloudflare.com, vercel-dns.com — the records go there instead, and that host's guide is the one to follow.

Where the records go

  1. Sign in at porkbun.com and open Account → Domain Management.
  2. Find the domain and press Details under it.
  3. Next to DNS Records, press the edit icon. The Manage DNS Records page opens: the add-record form at the top, the existing records under it.

What Porkbun calls each field

On imadoOn PorkbunWhat to put
TypeTypeChoose it from the list: TXT, CNAME or MX.
HostHostOnly the part before your domain — Porkbun adds .example.com itself. For the MX record, leave it empty.
ValueAnswerExactly as shown, copied with the button.
PriorityPriorityAppears once Type is MX. 10.
—TTLLeave it at 600.

Add the six records

First the ownership record; then, once imado shows it as Added, the other five. Each row is one press of Add.

As typed into Porkbunexample.com
TypeHostAnswerPriority
TXT_imado-challengeimado-verification=…—
CNAME…._domainkey….dkim.amazonses.com—
CNAME…._domainkey….dkim.amazonses.com—
CNAME…._domainkey….dkim.amazonses.com—
MX(empty)inbound-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com10
TXT_dmarcv=DMARC1; p=none;—
The last row is optional. The three CNAME hosts and answers are different for every domain, and the ownership value is yours alone — copy them from your domain's page on imado.

What gets in the way

  • Porkbun's email forwarding. If you turned it on, Porkbun added MX records of its own. Two sets of MX records on one domain send some mail each way; delete Porkbun's before adding imado's. The forwarding stops, and the same addresses can be created on imado.
  • The host typed in full. Porkbun appends your domain to whatever is in Host. _dmarc.example.com in that field becomes _dmarc.example.com.example.com, saves without complaint, and is never found. Type _dmarc.

Then, on imado

Back on your domain's page, press Check again. Porkbun's changes are usually seen within a few minutes. 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.

Porkbun's own guide to editing records is at kb.porkbun.com.