iCloud+ customer domain SPF issues on NameCheap

Here’s what fixed mine. Going from Google workspace to apple+ with custom domain.

First make sure you delete the old MX records from Google workspace or any other service.

Don’t worry about the 72 hour thing if you have to delete whatever you’ve put in and restart it will happen almost instantly when you get it right.

secondly and most important Make sure you enter the SPF record FROM APPLE as a TXT type not spf - Add the spf info to another line with your other TXT so you should end up with two MX , TWO TXT and one CNAME

this fixed my issue and I’m up and running

With no help from Apple and a little "dig"ing pun intended...

It looks like iCloud.com uses www-cdn.icloud.com.akadns.net for DNS services

( found by https://who.is/dns/icloud.com/ )

You can use the command line tool dig to see what iCloud is seeing from DNS.

dig @www-cdn.icloud.com.akadns.net yourdomain.com CNAME

dig @www-cdn.icloud.com.akadns.net yourdomain.com TXT

dig @www-cdn.icloud.com.akadns.net yourdomain.com MX

All Apple support had to do was run the dig command and say, we don't see the correct MX or SPF yet or they are malformed, or anything. So frustrating.

I hope this helps someone debug their issue.

I’ve just migrated my domain from Google to iCloud as Google seem to be making it ever more difficult to connect Apple devices to Gmail. I suffered the same issues as many above with the Finish Setup returning MX, SPF and occasionally DKIM errors. Eventually I left my existing MX record with priority 0 in my list and the Apple recommended entries on priority 10 together with the SPF and other recommendations in place. I came back about 14 hours later and removed my priority 0 MX record and after a few minutes everything verified successfully. I had used whatsmydns.org tools to check my dns records had propagated after I initially entered them and after a few minutes you could see that they had updated the majority of dns servers on their list. Just speculation but maybe the dns server Apple is using to verify the update is very slow to receive changes to dns entries?

so now up and running and 17000 emails that were sat in my gmail account copied to iCloud. Just be aware if you do that you can get some strange ordering of mails. As I wanted to see the last couple of weeks in the correct order I used iCloud.com mail interface to move them to a separate folder and then move them back and that has resolved that issue

Lance -- thanks for that tip! I followed the instructions in the Apple Support article, If you already have an SPF record, simply add "include:icloud.com" to the value before "~all". When I did so, I kept getting the error message to "Check your SPF record" in Step 4.

Once I took out everything in the SPF record, so it is EXACTLY this: v=spf1 include:icloud.com ~all (not quotes), waited about 10 minutes, then re-ran the step 4 verification, I got the confirmation that my domain was set up correctly and the custom email addresses are available to use in iCloud Mail.

After having the same problem and reading this thread I was very worried that I was over my head and I wouldn't be able to find a solution.

And then on a hunch, I tried something slightly different, I just removed the " " on each side of the spf record. It worked, right away.

So, to be clear, I just used:

v=spf1 include:icloud.com ~all

And it was immediately successful for me.

Good luck to everyone else trying to get this thing to work!

I think I figured it out with Namecheap, hope this helps someone else because it was a super frustrating process.

I entered apples configuration into host settings rather than the mail settings section, worked immediately.

Hi NotACleverHandle,

Thanks for posting in Apple Support Communities, we understand you're getting an SPF record error when trying to verify your custom domain.

You're definitely starting off with the right articles with Use Custom Email Domain with iCloud Mail and Add a custom email domain for iCloud Mail on iCloud.com.

When an SPF record error pops up, that usually means that the DNS records need to be updated with the domain registrar. You should have gotten an email with the subject, "Finish setting up your custom domain." This email contains specific DNS records. If you don't have that email any more, they can be found at iCloud.com/settings  > Custom Email Domain > Manage.

You may need to contact your domain registrar to update these DNS records.

Cheers!

For whatever it may be worth, mine was sorted the instant I deleted another domain from the SPF record. (In my case, an smtp service I use). The Apple instructions even say you can have other domains in there and how to configure it. And those instructions are fully in keeping with how it's supposed to work universally. But for me at least it seemed that iCloud just didn't like sharing the SPF record with another domain, despite the Apple instructions. I tried taking out the other domain (among a string of other try-outs), and hey presto all sorted! (Fortunately it turns out my smtp service doesn't need the SPF entry anyway, so it's all good).

Don't know if that will help anyone else? But I can report that the setup is working perfectly. Thumbs up from me, despite the SPF gremlins enroute.

Google Domains here. I tried two solutions at the same time - bad troubleshooting!

Removed a second domain from Apple and put the SPF record as a TXT with Google. Something worked!

Set the SPF up as TXT with the same text in the body. You should have one MX with TWO records and one TXT with TWO records including the SPF info as one of the TXT records. If that even makes sense!?

I'm having this same issue, namecheap is my DNS provider as well, so I am wondering if this is specific to namecheap.

On the 4th step I get a response dialog that says my SPF record is not correct (no more information than that) about 1/2 the time and the other times I get the same type of error for my MX record(s).

The most frustrating part is I validated that DNS is getting updated through mxtools.com, Apple Sr. support engineer just throws up their hands and points to namecheap. They can't do any more debugging until I go validate with namecheap what I have already validated with mxtools.com, nslookup from several different hosts.

I finally gave up and went to fastmail.

My ultimate goal was to continue to continue to use Mac Mail (aka Apple Mail) on my desktop because I don't like the interface of any web-based email. and GoDaddy, my email host, started forcing its customers to use Microsoft 365 which doesn't work with Mac Mail. I was already paying for an iCloud+ subscription so I might as well make iCloud+ my email provider with their personal domain feature. I figured two Apple products, iCloud+ and Mac Mail, ought to work together, right? wrong!

My personal domain was verified just fine. And then the DNS settings became my issue...with the feedback from the "Finish Setup" telling me to check my SPF settings.

Here are the things I already tried:

• Wix didn't like the quotes around the SPF field and highlighted that box in red like an error so according to some other help forums, I took the quotes off and Wix seemed to like that better, but still got the "Check your SPF settings" in the "Finish Setup" button.

• I put the SPF as a separate entry in the TXT area when I found this thread but when I did that and went to verify the settings on iCloud, the "Finish Setup" button was no longer an option. It just disappeared. So that wasn't going to work.

• I made certain my domain name purchased on GoDaddy had the right nameservers for Wix by taking them out, disconnecting my site temporarily, and putting them back in.

• I confirmed that Wix is where I should be putting this iCloud+ DNS information and not GoDaddy.

With my business' email down for 6 days (!) I eventually gave up and bought a mailbox on Wix.com ($30/year with a good sale) where my site is hosted and all is well. Maybe Apple will fix this SPF issue and later I'll move my email to icloud+ and I'll monitor this help support post in case someone finds a way to make this work but I won't be holding my breath.

Did you get a solution to this? I'm mired in the same issue right now. I even have a support ticket with Apple. They're as stumped as I am. They've escalated it to their engineering department and it could take several days! 🤯