SPF (Sender Policy Framework, RFC 7208) authorizes specific servers to send mail for your domain. When you start sending through Zoho Mail, you must publish a single SPF record at your domain apex that includes Zoho Mail's sending infrastructure — otherwise the messages will fail SPF, your DMARC checks will fail, and your mail will land in spam or be rejected outright.
If you already publish SPF for another sender (Google Workspace for inbound, a marketing tool, your CRM), do not publish a second record. Merge the new include into the existing record. RFC 7208 §3 forbids multiple SPF records on the same name and receivers MUST return permerror when they see one.
Publish these DNS records
Add the following record(s) to your domain's DNS zone. Most registrars (Cloudflare, Route 53, Namecheap, GoDaddy) accept values exactly as shown.
- Type
TXT- Host
@- Value
v=spf1 include:zoho.com ~all
- EU customers should use `include:zohomail.eu` instead. The wrong include silently passes SPF macros but fails alignment for some receivers.
Where in Zoho Mail
The SPF configuration lives in Zoho Mail Admin → Domains → <your-domain> → Email Configuration → DKIM.
Verify the records
Once published, run the SPF Checker on your domain to verify the lookup chain expands cleanly and stays under the 10-DNS-lookup limit.
dig +short TXT your-domain.comCommon pitfalls
- Zoho's DKIM verification step takes 30–60 minutes to recognize a freshly published TXT record even when DNS has propagated. The Verify button doesn't help — wait it out.
- If you migrate from Google Workspace to Zoho, remove Google's `_domainkey` records during cutover or you'll have multiple DKIM selectors active and may get flagged as spoofing.