Using our email when your website is hosted elsewhere (and the reverse)

Your domain's DNS controls email and website hosting separately. The MX records decide where mail goes; the A record (or CNAME) decides where the website loads from. You can point each at a different provider without breaking the other, as long as both sets of records stay correct at the same time.

If you want Flashcloud to handle your email while your site stays hosted elsewhere, or the reverse, the fix is the same either way: edit the DNS zone for the domain and change only the records for the service you're moving. Don't touch the other service's records, and don't switch nameservers if that would hand control of the whole zone to a place that doesn't have the records you still need.

How mail and web routing actually split

A domain's DNS zone holds several record types, and each one has a job:

• A / AAAA records point yourdomain.com (and often www) at the server that serves your website.
• MX records list the mail servers that should receive email for @yourdomain.com, in priority order.
• TXT records carry SPF, DKIM, and other verification data tied to whichever server is actually sending your mail.

Because these are separate record types, a domain can have its A record pointing at one host and its MX records pointing at a completely different one. Browsers only look at A/AAAA (or CNAME) when loading your site; mail servers only look at MX when delivering mail. Neither checks the other.

Hosting your email on Flashcloud, website elsewhere

If your site stays with another host but you want Flashcloud email:

1. Add the domain to your Flashcloud hosting account if it isn't already there.
2. Go to Services → your hosting → DNS Zone Editor and add Flashcloud's MX records for that domain, pointing at our mail servers.
3. Leave the A record for yourdomain.com and www pointing at wherever your site actually lives. Don't let the zone editor overwrite those.
4. Confirm SPF and DKIM are published for the mail server actually sending your mail. See SPF records: what they are and how to set one up and DKIM: what it is and why your email needs it for the exact record format.

One thing to watch: if your domain's nameservers point somewhere other than Flashcloud, you're not editing our DNS Zone Editor at all, you're editing the zone at whichever provider holds the nameservers. In that case, add our mail server's MX and any SPF/DKIM values there instead. Check which nameservers a domain is using under Domains → your domain → DNS in the portal; that page only controls nameservers, not individual records, so it won't help you edit MX directly unless the nameservers already point to us.

Hosting your website on Flashcloud, email elsewhere

This is the more common setup: a business already runs Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for mail and wants faster hosting for the site. The steps mirror the above, in reverse:

1. Point the domain's A record (or nameservers, if you're using ours) at your Flashcloud hosting.
2. In DNS Zone Editor, leave the existing MX records for your mail provider untouched, or add them if the zone is new and doesn't have them yet.
3. Copy over any SPF include: entries and DKIM TXT records your mail provider requires. If you're merging a new provider's SPF into an existing record rather than starting from a blank zone, only ever run one SPF record per domain, not two; see the SPF article above for how to combine entries correctly.

If you're not sure whether a problem you're chasing is a routing issue or a records issue, Email Routing is worth checking first. It lets you set a domain's mail handling to local or remote. If mail seems to be going to the wrong place, check whether the local/remote setting matches where your MX records actually point, and use the DNS Zone Editor to review or correct the MX records for that domain.

Verifying it worked

After changing records, give DNS a few minutes to propagate, then check each piece independently: load the site in a browser to confirm the A record change took, and send a test email to confirm mail lands where expected. If mail authentication looks off after the split, cPanel's Email Deliverability tool will tell you quickly whether SPF and DKIM still match what your mail server is sending, see checking SPF and DKIM with the Email Deliverability tool.

When to contact support

If you're not sure which nameservers your domain is actually using, or you've made the DNS changes above and mail still isn't routing correctly after propagation has had time to finish, open a ticket from the portal (Support → New ticket) or use live chat. A real person can check the zone directly and confirm whether the records are set up the way you intended.