What is SPF and how to configure it?

Starting in February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo are rolling out new authentication requirements which require using a custom DKIM authenticated domain with DMARC reinforced.

GetResponse strongly advises all senders to use emails addresses from own private domains as a from email address, and to configure both DKIM and DMARC.

For additional details on these modifications, refer to our blog post:
Gmail and Yahoo’s Authentication Changes: All You Need to Know

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) indicates IP addresses authorized to send emails from the specific domain. While we do recommend creating an SPF record, please note that doing so is not required to send messages from GetResponse.

Creating SPF record assigns it to the domain used as from email address. The sending domain is GetResponse and is already SPF signed. The domain used in the from’ field refers to the domain name that appears in the sender’s email address, in an email client where you see From: example@domain.com. This domain is visible to the recipient and helps identify who the sender claims to be. The sending domain refers to the domain that’s used to send the email from the server’s perspective.

To be able to create an SPF record, you will need:

  • Your own domain
  • Access to the DNS administration panel

Getting SPF key value from GetResponse

To get an SPF key in GetResponse you need to:

  1. In the GetResponse Dashboard, go to Profile > Emails and Domains.
  2. Go to Email addresses tab and click Authenticate next to the domain name you would like to generate the SPF key for.



  3. In the popup window you can choose between Automatic authentication or displaying the records to do it yourself. Here you can find more about automatic authentication.

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  4. Click I’ll do it myself and then Add SPF record to display the SPF record.

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  5. Copy the SPF record from the pop-up window. If you already have your own SPF record and want to keep it, copy and paste the value from the SPF record field into your record, before the ~all/-all value.

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Adding an SPF record for your domain

The process may differ depending on where your domain is hosted.

To add an SPF record to your domain, you need to:

  1. Log in to your domain hosting control panel.
  2. In the domain settings section, look for the DNS settings.
  3. Add a TXT record with provided value. The SPF record name (host) would be always the domain URL or @.
  4. Save the changes.

Depending on your domain host it can take up to 24 hours for the changes to propagate.

For more information on email authentication, please see our blog post.

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