: If I remove my A record, will it mess up MX records on that domain? I am using DNSimple and S3/Cloudfront. Following their recommended configuration looks like this: myapex.com ------ REDIRECT

@Megan663

Do MX records do something special with the zone apex or A record?


Your record for the root of your domain (myapex.com in your case) cannot be a CNAME record. It should be an A record. If this specific record is a CNAME record, mail will not be delivered to your MX records, rather it will be delivered to the MX records of where that CNAME points.

Other A records (to sub-domains) can be removed safely without affecting mail delivery or MX records.

Many CDN and load balancing services require that DNS record for your site be a CNAME to their DNS. If you want to host your website without a www then this can be a problem. I've been using Amazon Route 53 DNS services for this which introduce a new "Alias" type of DNS records where you specify the external name (like a CNAME) but they look up the address periodically and serve an IP address (A record): docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/CreatingAliasRRSets.html

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@Gloria169

They all point to Google services though, as we use Google for our email. Am I likely to break email or other services by removing an old A record?


If your MX records remain pointed to the Google mail server hosts, then you should be fine, providing that your nameservers are reachable and DNS table contains those MX records.

As far as other "services", that really depends on if they're A records or CNAME records, and where they point to. CNAME records point to hostnames, and A records point hostnames to IP addresses. So if you update or change the IP address of a hostname in an A record, the CNAME that points to them will resolve to the new IP address of the hostname. If you remove an A record for a hostname that a CNAME points to, then it will no longer resolve.

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