DNS Lookup Tool: Check A, CNAME, MX, TXT & NS Records Online
Look up DNS records for any domain instantly. Check A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, SRV, CAA, and PTR records with live TTL values. Powered by Google DNS, results reflect current propagation, not a cache.
Why we ask two resolvers. Every query runs against both Google and Cloudflare public DNS at the same time. If they return different answers, a change you made recently has not finished propagating, and that disagreement is flagged rather than hidden. One resolver alone cannot tell you that.
Reading TTL. Time To Live is how long a resolver is allowed to cache a record, in seconds. After you change a record, the old value can keep being served for up to one full TTL. A TTL of 3600 means an hour of waiting. Lower it before a planned migration, not after.
DNSSEC. When the AD flag comes back set, the resolver cryptographically verified the answer came from the real authoritative nameserver. Without it, DNS answers can be forged in transit.
How this DNS lookup tool queries records without a DNS socket in sight
Browsers cannot open a raw UDP socket to port 53 and talk to a nameserver directly, that capability is deliberately locked out of JavaScript for security reasons. So this tool does not perform a DNS query in the traditional sense. It calls Google’s public DNS-over-HTTPS resolver, the same infrastructure behind 8.8.8.8, over a normal HTTPS request and gets a JSON document back describing the answer a real resolver would give.
Be clear about what leaves your browser here. The domain name you type, and only the domain name, is sent to Google’s endpoint at dns.google/resolve for each record type you have selected. Nothing else about you or your session goes with it beyond standard HTTPS request metadata. This is a third-party API call, not a purely client-side computation, and it is the only realistic way to run DNS lookups from a web page.
The request and response cycle
http:// or https:// and anything after the first slash, so pasting a full URL still resolves the bare domain correctly.
fetch call goes to Google’s DoH JSON endpoint with that type as a query parameter. All requests run concurrently through Promise.all.
Answer array of objects each carrying name, TTL and data. For SOA and MX records the tool splits the space-delimited data string to pull out fields like priority, primary nameserver, and serial number, since DoH JSON does not break those out separately.
The TTL field is formatted into a readable span rather than a raw second count, so a value of 3600 shows as one hour rather than forcing you to do the arithmetic. TXT record values also get their surrounding quote marks stripped, since Google’s DoH JSON wraps TXT data in literal double quotes the way a zone file would.
The record types on offer
| Type | What it stores | Columns shown |
|---|---|---|
| A | IPv4 address | Name, TTL, Value |
| AAAA | IPv6 address | Name, TTL, Value |
| CNAME | Alias to another hostname | Name, TTL, Value |
| MX | Mail exchange server and priority | Name, TTL, Priority, Mail Server |
| TXT | Free-text, often SPF, DKIM or domain verification | Name, TTL, Value |
| NS | Authoritative nameservers | Name, TTL, Value |
| SOA | Zone authority, serial, refresh timers | Name, TTL, Primary NS, Email, Serial |
| SRV | Service location, port and weight | Name, TTL, Priority, Weight, Port, Target |
| CAA | Which certificate authorities may issue certs | Name, TTL, Value |
| PTR | Reverse lookup, IP to hostname | Name, TTL, Value |
dig +trace outside the browser.Two extras worth knowing about
Bulk type selection
Select All and Select None buttons toggle every checkbox at once, letting you fire all ten record types in one batch of concurrent requests instead of clicking through them individually.
Tab-separated export
The export button flattens every returned record across every queried type into a single tab-separated text file, built entirely client-side with a Blob and an object URL, no server involved in generating the download.
- RFC 8484 defines DNS Queries over HTTPS, the protocol Google’s endpoint implements.
- Google Public DNS JSON API reference documents the exact response shape this tool parses.
- RFC 1035 is the original DNS specification defining record types, TTLs and the zone file format that MX and SOA data strings still follow.
- RFC 6844 defines the CAA record, a newer addition used to restrict which certificate authorities can issue for a domain.
Diagnosing DNS problems
Verifying a CNAME or A record actually points where you expect after a DNS change, checking MX records before migrating email providers, confirming SPF and DKIM TXT records are published correctly to reduce spam flagging, auditing which nameservers a domain delegates to, and spotting a CAA record that might be silently blocking your certificate authority from issuing a new SSL certificate.
FAQ: DNS Lookup Tool
A DNS lookup tool queries the Domain Name System to retrieve the records associated with a domain. These records tell the internet where to route traffic — which server hosts the website, which handles email, which IP addresses the domain resolves to, and what third-party services are authorised to use the domain. This tool fetches all major record types in real time.
Enter the domain in this DNS lookup tool, make sure MX is checked in the record type selector, and click DNS Lookup. MX records appear in a table showing the mail server hostname and its priority value. A lower priority number means higher preference — the mail server with the lowest number receives email first.
TTL stands for Time To Live. It is the number of seconds a DNS record can be cached by resolvers before they must fetch a fresh copy from the authoritative nameserver. A TTL of 3600 means the record is cached for one hour. Lowering your TTL before making DNS changes gives you faster propagation when the change goes live.
A CNAME (Canonical Name) record creates an alias from one domain name to another. For example, www.example.com might be a CNAME pointing to example.com. This allows you to point subdomains to another domain or hostname without specifying an IP address directly. CNAMEs are commonly used to verify domain ownership with third-party services like Google Search Console or email providers.
Use this DNS lookup tool to query the domain after making a DNS change. Because it queries Google’s live DNS resolver rather than a cached local result, what you see here reflects what most users and services will see. If the tool shows your new record values, propagation is complete for most of the world. Full global propagation can take up to 48 hours depending on the original TTL.
Yes. This DNS lookup tool is completely free with no rate limits or account required. Run as many lookups as you need across any domain and any combination of record types.
From the blog
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Practical explanations of hashing, headers, certificates and consent, aimed at people who have to ship something this week.
