Set up reliable email with Mailgun

1Create your Mailgun account

Sign up at mailgun.com. The free plan needs no credit card. You’ll be asked to verify your email address before you can do anything else — do that before continuing.

2Add your sending domain

Once logged in, you land on the dashboard. Navigate to Send → Sending → Domains in the left sidebar. Your account starts with a sandbox domain — ignore that. You want to add your own domain.

On the Domains page, click Add new domain.

The Add Domain form opens. This form has four sections and one of them has a choice that will determine which DNS records you’ll need to add. Read every field below before you fill anything in.

Field by field — what to enter

Why “Use automatic sender security” is the right choice — and why the other option will trip you up.

Use automatic sender security CHOOSE THIS

• Mailgun manages and rotates your DKIM signing keys automatically
• Better long-term deliverability with no maintenance
• Gives you 2 CNAME records (pdk1 and pdk2) to add to DNS
• This guide’s DNS records table matches this option

Self-manage DKIM keys DO NOT USE

• You get a static 1024-bit key you must rotate yourself manually
• Gives you 1 TXT record instead of 2 CNAMEs — a completely different DNS record set
• If you pick this, the DNS records in Step 3 will not match what Mailgun shows you — you will need to start over

If you already added the domain with the wrong option: delete the domain in Mailgun (Domain Settings → Delete Domain), then add it again with “Use automatic sender security” selected.

Once you have filled in all fields correctly, click Add Domain. Mailgun will take a few seconds to create the domain and then show you the DNS records screen.

3Copy the DNS records

After clicking Add Domain, you land on the DNS records screen. This shows every record you need to add to your domain’s DNS. Do not close this page.

If you chose “Use automatic sender security” in Step 2, you will see 7 records: one SPF, two DKIM CNAMEs, one tracking CNAME, and two MX records. Here is what each one does:

4Add the records at your DNS provider

Open your DNS provider in a separate tab and add each of the 7 records. Keep the Mailgun DNS screen open for reference.

5Verify the domain in Mailgun

Once all records are added at your DNS provider, return to Mailgun and click Check Status (or Verify DNS Settings) on the DNS records page. Each record should change from a red cross to a green tick.

6Wait for DKIM activation

This step catches people out. Even after all DNS records show as “Verified” in Mailgun’s interface, sending may not work yet. Mailgun needs to activate the DKIM signing keys on its own servers, and it does this asynchronously after the CNAMEs validate. It typically takes 30 seconds to 10 minutes.

On the domain settings page, you may see a yellow warning like “Unverified domain settings” even though all records are green. That warning clears automatically once DKIM is fully active. Refresh the page every few minutes until the warning disappears.

7Enable DMARC

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) tells receiving mail servers what to do with messages that fail authentication, and where to send reports. You want this configured before you send any real email.

In your Mailgun domain settings, scroll to the Authentication records section near the bottom and click Enable DMARC. Mailgun generates a TXT record value for you.

Copy the TXT record value Mailgun gives you. It will look something like:

v=DMARC1; p=none; pct=100; fo=1; ri=3600; rua=mailto:…@dmarc.mailgun.org; ruf=mailto:…@dmarc.mailgun.org;

Go back to your DNS provider and add a new TXT record:

• Name / Host: _dmarc.mg.yourdomain.com
• Value: the full string Mailgun gave you

Then return to Mailgun and click Check Status again. The DMARC row should turn green.

8Create a sending key

The sending key is the credential that lets your site actually send email through Mailgun. It is scoped to this specific domain, which means even if it were ever compromised it could only be used to send from your one domain.

In your Mailgun domain settings, click the Sending keys tab, then Add sending key.

1. Give it a memorable name, for example pagemotor-site.
2. Click Create sending key.
3. Copy the key the moment it appears. Mailgun shows it exactly once. If you miss it, you have to delete the key and create a new one.

9Connect your site

10Test it really works

Mailgun saying “domain active” and the plugin saying “connection successful” only mean the credentials are valid. They do not prove a single email will land in an inbox. This step is the only thing that does.