What this is for#
You added your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records at your DNS host, came back to AcelleMail, and the domain still shows Pending instead of Verified. Nine times out of ten this is normal DNS propagation, not a mistake. This article explains what's happening and exactly what to do — without sending you to a terminal.
Why it's not instant#
When you save a DNS record, it doesn't appear everywhere at once. DNS is cached around the internet, and each record has a "time to live" (TTL) that controls how long resolvers hold the old answer before fetching the new one. Until those caches refresh, a checker — including AcelleMail's Verify — may still see "no record yet."
That's the whole story. You don't need to understand DNSSEC or routing to fix a Pending domain; you need to know how long to wait and how to tell a delay from a real error.
What to do#
- Wait, then re-check. Most records propagate in 5-60 minutes. Give it an hour, then in AcelleMail open the sending domain and click Verify again. A lot of "it's broken!" is just checking too soon.
- Still Pending after a few hours? Re-check after the longer window — propagation can occasionally take up to 24-48 hours, especially if your old records had a long TTL.
- Still Pending after 24 hours? Now it's worth suspecting a real mistake at your DNS host (see below) — propagation alone never takes that long.
Telling a delay from a real mistake#
If a record genuinely won't verify after a day, it's almost always one of these at your DNS host — not propagation:
- Wrong record type — e.g. an A record where a TXT or CNAME was needed.
- The host/name field is off — many DNS panels auto-append your domain, so typing
dkim._domainkey.example.com becomes dkim._domainkey.example.com.example.com. Use exactly what AcelleMail shows.
- Extra quotes or line breaks — paste the record value exactly; some panels add their own quotes.
- It didn't actually save — re-open the record in your DNS panel and confirm it's there as you entered it.
Fix the record, save, wait an hour, and click Verify again.
Common questions#
Does a faster TTL make AcelleMail verify quicker? A lower TTL helps future changes propagate faster, but the first time you add a record there's nothing cached yet, so it's mostly down to your DNS host pushing the record out. Just wait and re-check.
The record looks right but still won't verify — what now? Confirm you put it on the exact domain AcelleMail is checking (the apex vs a subdomain catches people out), and that you didn't duplicate an existing SPF record — a domain may only have one SPF record, so multiple v=spf1 lines must be merged into one. See How to Set Up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Records.
Related articles#
