What is an MX Record?

An MX Record is a DNS record that helps servers decide where to send mail for any given domain. You can use them to send mail to a different server from the one where your website is hosted, or to designate a backup mail server.

Edit Your MX Record to Send Mail to Another Server

cPanel manages your email through it's own server. However, by altering your MX entry you can point your email to another server if needed. To send your mail to another server by editing your MX entries:

1. Log into cPanel

2. Click the Modify Mail Exchanger (MX Entry) link in the Mail area

3. Click the Change an MX Entry link

4. Enter the domain name of the new MX Entry in the available field
   Note: you can only change the entry to a domain name (like yourURL.com), not an IP (Internet Protocol) address.

5. Click the Change button

Add Any Additional Records (like for Google Apps)

To set up your domain to work with Google Apps mail:

1. Login into your cPanel (which is usually available at 'http://example.com/cpanel' where example.com is your actual domain name)

2. Navigate to MX Entry

3. If you have only one domain on your account, you will see MX Entries at the bottom of the screen, if you use any add-on or parked domains you may have to select the domain you wish to edit from the dropdown menu

4. If there is any MX Entry already present for the domain, delete it

5. Add the following records: 
   
   Priority     Destination
   0              ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
   5              ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
   5              ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
   10            ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM
   10            ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM

Use Google Interface to Log Into Your Mail

Additionally, you may want to direct your mail.example.com record to Google Apps so that you can, for example, use it to login to your mail interface. Wait out the DNS propagation; this can take up to 48 hours on some networks, however it's usually less time.

To do this:

1. Log into cPanel  and open up Advanced DNS Zone Editor
   
   You will see a mail.example.com record (where example.com is your actual domain name you're adding Google Apps mail for) there, which is a CNAME record.

2. ​Change it to ghs.google.com
   
   After the DNS propagates, this record will begin to function