: Can I delete TXT record after DKIM configuration? I've added a TXT record to my domain DNS configuration in order to configure DKIM. Can I delete that TXT record after DKIM configuration?

@Heady270

No. The recipient's email server verify this via a reverse-DNS lookup to prevent spoofing.

--> expanded my answer upon the advise of Stephen Ostermiller

The DKIM needed to be set up at 2 locations:


The server from which your emails are sent out (EG:
Mail.YourEmailSender.com)
The DNS record of the domain which your
email is supposed to be from (EG: You@YourDomain.com)


When you send out the email, there are many details that are included in the header (or sometimes called "Source") of the email. And if you've setup a DKIM on the mailing server, it will be included.

After the email is sent to the recipient's mail server, many checks happen there like:


Checking on the authenticity of the email
Checking if the email is sent from blacklisted IP
address or domain
Checking if the content of the email is a
spam/scam/phishing/spoof/etc
Checking on the existence of the recipient
and more .. depending on what was setup by the sys admin


Almost anyone can send an email from Mail.YourEmailSender.com and pretend that it is from You@YourDomain.com .. just insert You@YourDomain.com into an email's "From" and "Reply-To" fields

The recipient's mail server needs to confirm you have authorised Mail.YourEmailSender.com to send the email from you. And it is based on the assumption that only the authorised user of a domain like YourDomain.com has access to the DNS records. Thus if the DKIM is same on both the DNS records and the email's header are identical, then this email is genuinely sent by you.

So the moment you remove that from your TXT records, the recipient's mail server will not be able to not be able to find a matching DKIM on the DNS and may interpret that the email was sent by an impostor. Hence, it may reject the email or send it straight to the SPAM folder ..

In addition to DKIM, you may want to also explore the following topics to improve your email deliverability

For details about DKIM: www.dkim.org/

SPF (http://www.openspf.org/)
DMARC (https://dmarc.org)
Reverse DNS Lookup (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_DNS_lookup)


Hope this helps

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