iCloud Mail (Apple) email authentication

Apple’s custom email domain feature, included with iCloud+.

SPF record

Add iCloud Mail (Apple) to your domain's SPF record with this include:

include:icloud.com

A complete record for a domain sending only through iCloud Mail (Apple):

v=spf1 include:icloud.com ~all

What it costs you

5 of your 10 DNS lookups. The include: itself costs one, and iCloud Mail (Apple)'s record chains to 4 more. Behind it are 24 IP ranges.

At 5 lookups this is an expensive include. If your record is near the limit, this is one of the first places to look — see too many DNS lookups.

Live record

This is what icloud.com published when this page was generated:

v=spf1 redirect=_spf.icloud.com

DKIM

Enable DKIM inside iCloud Mail (Apple) and publish the selector record it generates. DKIM matters more than SPF for deliverability, because a DKIM signature survives forwarding while SPF does not — see how selectors work.

DMARC

Neither SPF nor DKIM protects the address your recipients actually see until DMARC ties them to it. Once iCloud Mail (Apple) is authenticating, publish a DMARC record — start at p=none with a reporting address and tighten from there.

Generate a DMARC record →

Check it worked

DNS changes take minutes to hours to propagate. Once published, run the domain through the checker — it resolves the full include chain and reports the real lookup count.

Official documentation

iCloud Mail (Apple) setup docs →