Keeping your email working during a website change

To keep your email working during a website change, find out where your mailboxes actually live, record your domain's email settings before anything changes, and make sure the switch only touches the settings for the website. Email and website share your domain name but run on separate settings. Email breaks during a redesign for one reason: someone changes or replaces the domain's MX records, the lines that tell the world where to deliver your mail. Leave those alone and your inbox does not notice the new site at all.

Your domain, say harborvet.com, has a short list of settings called DNS records. Each record does one job:

A and CNAME records say where your website lives. These are the ones a redesign changes.
MX records say which mail service receives messages for [email protected]. These must stay.
TXT records do several jobs, including SPF and DKIM, which tell other mail services your emails are genuine so they do not land in spam. These must stay too.

Because they are separate lines, you can change the website records without touching the mail records. The trouble starts when someone replaces the whole list instead of editing the lines they need. MX records: why changing your website can break email goes deeper into how that happens.

Step 1: find out where your email lives

Your mail is handled by one of a few kinds of provider. Which one you have decides how careful you need to be.

Google Workspace (Gmail with your domain) or Microsoft 365 (Outlook with your domain). Your mailboxes live with Google or Microsoft, entirely separate from your website. As long as the MX records stay, a website change does not affect them. Google Workspace email and a new website and Microsoft 365 email and your website domain cover each one.
Your website host. Many hosting plans include mailboxes. Here the mail lives on the same account as your old website, and cancelling the hosting deletes the mailboxes. This is the riskiest case.
Your registrar. Some registrars, such as GoDaddy or Namecheap, sell email alongside the domain. It is separate from the website but tied to the registrar account.
Forwarding only. Some domains have no mailboxes at all, just forwarding to a personal Gmail or Yahoo address. The forwarding lives in the registrar's settings.

To check, log in where your domain's DNS is managed and look at the MX records:

Values mentioning google.com mean Google Workspace.
Values ending in outlook.com or protection.outlook.com mean Microsoft 365.
Values mentioning your host's name, or mail.yourdomain.com, usually mean email at the host.
Values mentioning your registrar mean registrar email or forwarding.

Step 2: record your current settings

Before anyone changes anything, take screenshots of the whole DNS page, every record, top to bottom. Write down separately:

Each MX record and its priority number.
Any TXT records starting with v=spf1, and any containing DKIM or DMARC.
Any CNAME records with names like autodiscover, mail or selector (used by Microsoft and mail tools).

Save these somewhere outside your email, such as a printed copy or a note on your phone. If mail stops, you will not be able to open an email to find them.

Step 3: choose the safe way to switch

There are two common ways to point a domain at a new site.

Editing just the website records is the safe route for email. Only the A and CNAME lines change; the MX and TXT lines are never touched. Keep your domain where it is and point it at a new site explains this approach.

Changing the nameservers moves management of every record to a new company. The new company starts with its own list. If your MX, SPF and DKIM records are not recreated there exactly, email stops the moment the change spreads. This can be done safely, but only if someone copies every mail record across first and checks them line by line.

If your email lives at your old web host, there is one more step: move your mailboxes to a provider that will outlive the old hosting, such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, before the website changes. Moving your business email to a new provider explains how.

Step 4: test right after the switch

Once the website records are changed:

Send an email to your business address from a personal account, such as a Gmail on your phone. Confirm it arrives.
Reply to it from your business address. Confirm the reply reaches the personal account and not its spam folder.
Check on your phone and computer if you read mail in both places.
Test the new website's contact form and confirm the message arrives where it should.
Repeat the next morning. Changes spread over hours, so a test the day after catches late problems.

If email stops anyway

Do not panic, and do not change more settings at random. Open your screenshots and compare them with what the DNS page shows now. Usually an MX record is missing or different. Put it back exactly as it was, including the priority number. Mail usually starts flowing again within an hour or so, and most sending services retry delivery for a while, so messages sent during the gap often still arrive late rather than being lost.

What about the contact form?

The form on your website is separate from your mailboxes. It sends messages to an address you set. After the switch, make sure the new form sends to the right inbox and that those messages do not land in spam. Where do website contact form messages go? explains the plumbing.

Your email safety checklist

Find out who provides your mailboxes.
Screenshot every DNS record before the switch.
Write down MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC values separately.
Agree in writing which records will change.
Move mailboxes off old hosting first, if that is where they live.
Test sending and receiving straight after the switch and again the next day.
Keep the old hosting until email is confirmed independent of it.

When the new site is built on a preview address first, the email question can be settled calmly before your domain is touched. You can see your site rebuilt first and handle the switch, and the mail check, on a day that suits you.