TXT Lookup
Read the TXT records published on a domain.
Enter a value above to run TXT Lookup
e.g. example.com
Quick answer
A TXT lookup reads the text records published on a domain, commonly used for SPF, DKIM, DMARC and domain-ownership verification. Each record is a line of text that other services read to check email or confirm control of the domain.
A TXT record stores arbitrary text data in DNS, and over the years it has become the standard place to publish machine-readable policy strings. This tool queries a domain's TXT records and shows exactly what a resolver returns, so you can confirm that entries like SPF, DKIM, DMARC, or domain-ownership tokens are actually live. Because a single domain often carries many unrelated TXT records at once, seeing the full set side by side is the quickest way to verify what mail servers, verification bots, and other systems really read for your name.
How it works
You enter a hostname and the tool asks a DNS resolver for the TXT records at that exact name. TXT records live on specific labels: the root domain (example.com) commonly holds SPF and site-verification strings, while DKIM and DMARC sit on subnames such as selector._domainkey.example.com and _dmarc.example.com. The lookup returns every TXT string published at the name you queried. Long values are stored as several 255-character chunks that get joined into one string when read.
How to read the results
Each result is one TXT record, shown as the text between its quotes. Read the leading tag to identify its purpose: v=spf1 is an SPF policy, v=DKIM1 a signing key, v=DMARC1 a reporting policy, and random strings like google-site-verification are ownership proofs. A domain can legitimately hold several TXT records, but you must never publish two SPF records on the same name. If a value looks truncated, the chunks were simply reassembled for display.
Common problems & fixes
If an expected record is missing, confirm you queried the right label; DKIM and DMARC do not live on the root domain. Newly added or edited records may still be cached, so allow for the record's TTL before trusting old data. Watch for duplicate SPF records, smart quotes pasted from a document, or trailing spaces, all of which break parsing. If a value seems cut off, remember DNS splits long TXT data into 255-character pieces that clients rejoin.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does one domain have so many TXT records?
- TXT is a general-purpose container, so many independent systems reuse it. A single domain often carries an SPF policy, one or more site-verification tokens for services like Google or Microsoft, and other signals, all at the root name. They coexist fine because each consumer looks only for the prefix it cares about, such as v=spf1, and ignores the rest.
- Where do SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records actually live?
- SPF sits as a TXT record on the root domain itself, for example example.com. DKIM lives on a selector subname like selector1._domainkey.example.com, where the selector is chosen by your mail provider. DMARC is always published at _dmarc.example.com. To find each one, query that specific hostname rather than expecting them all at the root.
- Why does my long TXT record look split up?
- DNS limits each TXT string to 255 characters, so anything longer, like a 2048-bit DKIM key, is stored as several quoted chunks in one record. Resolvers and mail servers concatenate those chunks back into a single value automatically. This tool joins them for display, so a split you see in a zone file editor does not mean the record is broken.