SPF record for Zendesk

Zendesk sends ticket notifications and agent replies from your support address. To send that mail as your domain and pass DMARC, publish the records below and check the alignment notes.

The SPF record

Add this include to the SPF record on your sending domain:

A complete record for a domain that also sends through Google Workspace:

Add this if Zendesk sends as an address on your domain, which is the usual reason anyone looks this up. Support addresses that stay on yourbrand.zendesk.com need nothing from you.

Then count your lookups, because SPF allows ten DNS lookups across the whole chain of includes. A sender that receivers need an eleventh lookup to find gets a permerror and fails SPF, even though the record looks right when you read it. Run the domain through the SPF checker after every change. The count also moves when a provider changes its own records.

DKIM

Zendesk publishes the keys itself and you point at them with two CNAMEs:

Then turn on digital signing in the Admin Center, under Channels, Talk and email, Email. Zendesk checks the records before it lets you enable it.

DMARC alignment with Zendesk

DMARC passes when SPF or DKIM passes and the domain it authenticated matches the domain in your visible From address. A provider can pass both checks for its own domain while your mail fails DMARC.

• Zendesk's outbound mail carries a Zendesk envelope sender, so SPF passes for Zendesk and doesn't align with your domain. Your mail passes DMARC through the DKIM CNAMEs.
• Notifications sent on behalf of an agent still use the support address, so one set of records covers the whole help desk. Multiple brands with different domains need a set each.
• If your DMARC policy is at reject before signing is enabled, every ticket reply to a strict receiver bounces, and the customer sees silence rather than an error.

The DMARC alignment guide covers the general case, and the dmarc=fail page shows how to read the Authentication-Results header.

Verification

Substitute your domain, and run these after the TTL on anything you replaced has expired:

Then send one message through Zendesk to a Gmail address you control, open Show original, and look for dkim=pass with your domain in header.i. A test message shows what a receiver does with your mail. A DNS lookup only shows what you published.

Our SPF checker gives you the lookup count. The DKIM checker shows whether a selector resolves and whether the key is long enough, and the DMARC checker reads your policy back to you. You can use them free, without an account.

I checked the values here against Zendesk's own documentation, at Zendesk support site. Providers change their DNS requirements without much notice. If their screen shows something different from this page, follow their screen and tell us.

A record can be correct and still fail alignment once real mail goes through it. Receivers record that result in the reports they send. We read the reports for you, and on a paid plan we email you the day a new sender fails. See whether this sender passes. Your first domain is free.