# Set up email on a Porkbun domain

_Where Porkbun keeps a domain's DNS records, what its form calls each field, why the Host field is left empty for the record that receives mail, and the email forwarding it sets up on a new domain that gets in the way. About ten minutes at Porkbun, in two visits._

Published 20 September 2026 · Last updated 22 September 2026

## 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](https://www.imado.cloud/guides) is the one to follow.

## Where the records go

1. Sign in at porkbun.com. You arrive at **Domain Management**; if you were already signed in, it is under **ACCOUNT** in the top-right corner.
2. Find the domain and press the **DNS** button under its name. (The longer way round is **Details** to the right of the domain, then the edit icon under **DNS RECORDS**.)
3. The **Manage DNS Records** page opens, listing every record on the domain. **Add Record** opens the form for a new one.

## What Porkbun calls each field

The third field changes its name with the type you picked — Porkbun's own guide calls it "Answer/Value/IPv4 Address". It is one field, and for everything here it holds the value imado gives you.

| On imado | On Porkbun | What to put |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Type | Type | Choose it from the list, which spells the type out — TXT, CNAME, MX. |
| Host | Host | Only the part before your domain — Porkbun adds .example.com itself. For the MX record, leave it empty: Porkbun's blank field is what every other panel writes as @. |
| Value | Answer | Exactly as shown, copied with the button. Porkbun renames this field with the type, so it may read Answer, Value or Destination. |
| Priority | Priority | Appears once Type is MX. 10. |
| — | TTL | Leave it at 600, which is also the lowest Porkbun allows. |
| — | Notes | Yours to use or ignore — a reminder of what the record is for, visible only to you. It changes nothing about the record. |

## 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 Porkbun's is the one that catches people who have set up a domain somewhere else before:

**On Porkbun, leave Host empty.** Not `@`, not `example.com`. Porkbun's own guide is explicit: for a record on your root domain, you leave the field blank.

`@` is the convention most other panels use, and instructions written for one of them will tell you to type it. On Porkbun it means the same thing as an empty field — but the field Porkbun asks you to use is the empty one, so use that. Typing your domain in full is the answer that actually breaks: Porkbun appends the domain to whatever you put there, so `example.com` becomes `example.com.example.com`, which saves without complaint and receives nothing.

The other five records all have something in front of the domain — `_imado-challenge`, `_dmarc`, the three `_domainkey` names — and those go in **Host** exactly as shown, with no domain after them. A CNAME's Host can never be empty, so if Porkbun refuses one of the three signing records for an empty host, the value was pasted into the wrong field.

## Add the six records

First the ownership record; then, once imado shows it as **Added**, the other five. Each one is **Add Record**, the fields, and **Add**.

**As typed into Porkbun**

| Type | Host | Answer | Priority |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| TXT | `_imado-challenge` | `imado-verification=…` | — |
| CNAME | `…._domainkey` | `….dkim.amazonses.com` | — |
| CNAME | `…._domainkey` | `….dkim.amazonses.com` | — |
| CNAME | `…._domainkey` | `….dkim.amazonses.com` | — |
| MX | (empty) | `inbound-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com` | 10 |
| TXT | `_dmarc` | `v=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 or email hosting.** If either was ever turned 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 Fix DNS button.** Porkbun's **Email Hosting and Forwarding** page has a **Fix DNS** button at the bottom that puts Porkbun's own MX and SPF records back on the domain. It is the right button when Porkbun is your mail provider and exactly the wrong one afterwards: pressing it undoes the MX record you added here. If mail stops arriving at imado, check whether it was pressed.
- **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; its lowest TTL is ten minutes, so a record you correct rather than add can take that long to be seen again. 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](https://www.imado.cloud/docs/get-started#5-create-a-mailbox).

Porkbun's own guides cover [adding a record](https://kb.porkbun.com/article/231-how-to-add-dns-records-on-porkbun) and [editing one](https://kb.porkbun.com/article/68-how-to-edit-dns-records).

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Source: https://www.imado.cloud/guides/porkbun-email · Site summary: https://www.imado.cloud/llms.txt