Score:4

Will changing my DNS A record have an impact on my emails?

eh flag

I have a domain name with godaddy, which also provides email via a Microsoft Business 365 plan. My website is hosted on Wix.com. The domain name points to my website via pointing meaning that I did not change the nameservers on godaddy. For personal reasons, I need to move away from Wix and I do not want to transfer my domain name or emails to another web host.

If I change the DNS A record to my new web host, is there going to be an impact on my email? I'm thinking about doing that, because webhosts typically suggest to change the name servers to theirs, but I'm afraid I'll might have problems with my emails. Am I right?

Criggie avatar
in flag
If you were prepared to share your domain name publically, it could be used to illustrate examples in these answers. Just a thought.
Score:7
vn flag

To add to Vidarlo's response - An MX record, which defines your mail host, specifies a named server as the destination for mail. The name in turn is resolved by an A or AAAA record. If you change the A record that the MX record refers to, that will change your mail server. If your MX record points to some mail server outside your domain, such as Microsoft's mail servers (as seems to be the case, per your question), then changing your A records will have no effect on it. Note that if you're using Wix's mail servers, closing your account with them will likely lose your email unless you manage to get it hosted somewhere else.

Score:6
us flag

One scenario where it can make a difference is with Autodiscovery in Outlook.

Since your email is with 365 it's unlikely to be an issue for you, since 365 is one of the first places Outlook checks for an Autodiscover response* (see https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/outlook-2016-implementation-of-autodiscover-0d7b2709-958a-7249-1c87-434d257b9087 for the complete process).

For anyone whose email is elsewhere, for example using MS Exchange via another company, if the service uses Autodiscover domains (step 7), HTTP redirects (step 9), or SRV data (step 10), to distribute the Autodiscover information to Outlook, they can have issues without taking manual steps**.

That's because after checking the o365 locations (step 4), the next thing Outlook will try if the information isn't available locally is step 6, where it will check http://<domain name>/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml, which naturally point to the web hosting. If the hosting simply responds with a 404 then it's fine, but if it responds with an answer, for instance if the hosting includes email (even if it's not used), and especially if it is still configured to think it's authoritative for email on the domain (so responds as such to the Autodiscover query), then it will give an answer. Even if that answer isn't valid, Outlook will stop trying the other steps and can fails to autodisover the email account.

I've had this multiple times in the past where a customer moved hosting to a cPanel service, which by default included email (even though the MX records weren't directed to that server), after which their autodiscover stopped working until the cPanel account was updated to no longer think it handled email for the domain.

*which can sometimes cause issues if the email is NOT on o365, but they do have a login using that email address on Microsoft's systems.

**including via policy / registry edits, telling Outlook NOT to use those earlier methods, eg the Exclude policy controls listed in that article for each step.

mythofechelon avatar
mz flag
Can confirm - I came here to say this. But it's rarely been an issue in real life in my experience.
Score:5
ar flag

Probably no impact. Normally E-mail service is defined by MX records, not by A records. But as a fallback mechanism, if no MX is defined, it will be handled by the apex A record.

Score:0
ua flag

The A record can be referenced in the SPF record (and this is done in many examples). If you currently (knowingly or unknowingly) rely on this, changing the A record could have the effect that the old server would no longer be able to send mails.

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