Microsoft 365 SPF record and where to add it

Setting up SPF on Microsoft 365 comes down to one TXT record at the root of your domain, holding a line that starts v=spf1 and names the servers allowed to send mail as you.

Microsoft 365 is the mail platform that runs the mailboxes on Exchange Online and states what the SPF record should contain. It is not necessarily the place that holds the domain’s DNS, so it does not put the record there on its own.

The order below is the record first and the console second, because the pasting takes two minutes and the thinking is all in the line itself.

What the record says, and why it lives in DNS

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a published list of the sources that may send mail for your domain. When a mail server receives a message with your domain in the return path, it fetches the TXT record at that domain, checks whether the connecting server’s address is on the list, and writes the result into the message headers for the filters that run afterwards.

That lookup goes to whichever nameservers the registry lists for your domain, and to nowhere else. This is why the record has to be published where your DNS is answered, and why a record saved in the wrong console is invisible to the world, however correct its text.

Check the domain in the registrar account and look at the Nameservers section to see which company answers for the domain’s DNS. If those nameservers point somewhere other than Microsoft, the SPF record goes into that company’s DNS settings, not into Microsoft 365. If the nameservers point to Microsoft, the record lives in the Microsoft 365 admin center instead, under Settings, then Domains, then DNS records.

Read the record before you paste it

An SPF record is a single string with three parts: the version tag, a list of mechanisms, and a closing catch-all. The version tag is always v=spf1, and a TXT record without it isn’t SPF at all.

Mechanisms come next, separated by spaces, and each one names a source of legitimate mail. include: pulls in another domain’s SPF record, which is how you authorise a mail provider or a newsletter tool: you name the hostname they publish and their list becomes part of yours. ip4: and ip6: name an address or a range directly, for a server you run yourself. a and mx authorise the hosts behind your domain’s own A and MX records.

redirect= hands the whole evaluation to another domain’s record; it’s a modifier rather than a mechanism, it can’t sit alongside an all, and it matters here because some hosts publish a record in that form on your behalf.

Each mechanism can carry a qualifier in front of it. + means pass and is the default, so include: and +include: are the same thing. - means fail, ~ means soft fail, and ? means neutral. The one qualifier that decides anything is the one on the last term.

That last term is all, and it says what to do about a source the mechanisms didn’t match. -all asks the receiver to fail unlisted mail. ~all asks it to accept the message and mark it suspect. ?all says nothing useful, and +all authorises the entire internet, which is worse than publishing no record.

Start with ~all while you’re confirming that the list is complete, then move to -all once a few weeks of ordinary sending have passed without a legitimate source turning up as unlisted. The choice between the two endings has its own page. Of the 316,600,902 domains carrying a grade in the September 2026 census, 84,153,064 (26.6%) end their record in ~all.

Two limits shape what you can put in the list. A domain gets one SPF record: a receiver that finds two TXT records starting v=spf1 treats the domain as having a permanent error, which counts the same as having none.

A record may also trigger at most ten DNS lookups during evaluation, counting each include:, a, mx and redirect= plus the lookups inside any record they pull in; an eleventh lookup fails the whole record. So a second sender goes into the existing record as another include:, and if the count is getting high, the mail provider’s help page usually says which of its hostnames costs the fewest lookups.

The record for Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 writes the SPF record itself only when Microsoft also runs the domain’s DNS, at the point the domain is set up in the admin centre. Where another company runs the domain’s DNS, Microsoft 365 states the record’s content but leaves adding it to the reader.

v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all

Compare that block against what your mail provider’s own setup page tells you to publish. The include: hostname has to match theirs character for character, because it’s a DNS name the receiver will resolve, and a typo resolves to nothing. If you send from more than one service, each gets its own include: in the same line, in any order, before the all.

Enter the record, click by click

1. Sign in to the DNS host, which is the registrar, the web host, the DNS provider, or the Microsoft 365 admin center when Microsoft runs the domain’s DNS.
2. Open the DNS settings for the domain, looking for a menu labelled DNS, Records, or Advanced DNS.
3. Add a new record and choose TXT as the type.
4. In the Name or Host field, enter @, which means the domain itself rather than the full domain name.
5. In the Value or Data field, paste v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all, or the combined record if other senders already have an SPF entry.
6. Leave TTL at the default of one hour.
7. Save the record to publish it.

Set the type field to TXT. Set the Name or Host field to @, which this provider treats as the domain itself rather than requiring the full domain name to be typed out. Paste the record text into the Value or Data field exactly as given, with no extra quote marks added around it. Leave TTL at the host’s default of one hour.

Before you save, read the value back once. The whole string sits on one line with single spaces between terms, no line break, no trailing space, and nothing after the all. If the form already shows a TXT record beginning v=spf1, you’re editing that one, and the only reason to be adding a new row is that no such record exists.

Some of the mistakes on this form belong to this console rather than to SPF.

• Microsoft 365’s settings and the Exchange admin centre hold no SPF box, because the record belongs in DNS rather than in a mailbox setting.
• The include host has to read exactly spf.protection.outlook.com. An older or copied record naming a different host will not authorise Microsoft’s servers.
• Most DNS hosts add the surrounding quotes themselves, so the value should be pasted plain. A value already wrapped in a second set of quotes produces a broken record.
• Only one TXT record starting with v=spf1 can exist per domain. A domain already sending through another tool needs its include added into that same record rather than a second record created.

Wait, then check it

A saved change takes from a few minutes up to a couple of hours to take effect everywhere. The saved record appears back in the DNS host’s records list, or in the Microsoft 365 admin center’s DNS records screen when Microsoft holds the domain’s DNS.

Once the change has had time to spread, run the free scan against your domain. It fetches the record the way a receiving mail server would, reports whether one is present, whether it parses, how many lookups it costs and which qualifier it ends on, and it checks DKIM and DMARC in the same pass.

Reopen the DNS records list for the domain and confirm a single TXT record starting with v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com is present, with no second v=spf1 record alongside it.

If the scan reports no record when you’ve saved one, the order of suspects is the nameserver check at the top of this page, then a second v=spf1 row that has been sitting in the zone for years, then a value the form mangled on the way in. A record that’s present but reports as invalid is nearly always one of the limits above: two records, too many lookups, a redirect= with an all after it, or quote marks that ended up doubled.

What a missing or broken record costs you

Of the 316,600,902 domains carrying a grade in the September 2026 census, 166,497,698 (52.6%) publish no SPF record at all. For any of them, a receiver has no list to check the sending server against, so mail from the real mailboxes and mail from a forger’s server arrive carrying the same amount of evidence. Your genuine messages then depend on the receiver’s other filters, and a share of them land in spam for no reason you can see.

A malformed record ends in the same place. A permanent error reads as no policy, and some receivers treat a domain that publishes a broken policy less kindly than one that publishes nothing.

What SPF does on its own is narrower than people expect. It authorises the server, judged against the envelope sender that the recipient never sees, and the result is a header line rather than an instruction. A forged message that fails SPF can still be delivered, because until a DMARC policy tells receivers what to do with a failure, they’re under no obligation to do anything with it.

SPF is the list, DMARC is what turns the list into an instruction receivers act on, and the SPF guide covers how the two fit together and how to read the result headers on a message you’ve sent yourself.

Figures as of 5 September 2026, from the September 2026 edition of the defaults.exposed census. Census numbers move every month; the current values are on the census data page.