Editing DNS Records in cPanel with Zone Editor Print

Before you start

Zone Editor is cPanel's tool for viewing and changing your domain's DNS records directly. It applies changes immediately and asks for no confirmation of intent, which makes it powerful and unforgiving in equal measure. If you are following instructions from a third-party service and they make complete sense to you, this article shows you the way. If any part of the instructions is unclear, open a support ticket with the instructions attached and we will make the changes instead, there is no shame in that route, it is the one most clients take.

For what each record type actually does, keep our article on DNS record types in plain language open alongside this one.

Opening Zone Editor

1. Log in to cPanel at yourdomain.tld/cpanel using your cPanel username and password from your welcome email.
2. Find Zone Editor under the Domains section, the search box at the top of cPanel gets you there fastest.
3. Next to the domain you want to edit, click Manage. The full list of the domain's records appears, filterable by type across the top.

Adding a record

1. Click Add Record, and choose the record type if the button offers a dropdown.
2. Name: enter the name exactly as instructed. cPanel auto-completes the domain part, so for a record on verify.yourdomain.tld, typing verify is enough, and for the bare domain itself, use yourdomain.tld. If a service's instructions say the name is @ or "root," that means the bare domain.
3. TTL: leave the default of 14400 unless instructed otherwise.
4. Record: paste the value, the IP address for an A record, the target name for a CNAME, the text string for a TXT record. Paste rather than retype, DNS values are precise and unforgiving of typos, and watch for trailing spaces picked up while copying.
5. Click Save Record. The change is live on our nameservers immediately, and reaches the wider internet within the TTL window, minutes to a few hours for most checks.

Editing or deleting a record

Each record row has Edit and Delete actions. Edit opens the same fields as adding. Two cautions carry most of the risk in this tool:

• Change only the record the instructions describe. The list includes records that make your website and email work, the A record for the bare domain, the MX records, the mail-related TXT records. Deleting or editing one of these by mistake takes the associated service down as immediately as any deliberate change.
• When replacing a record, add before you delete where the type allows it, or edit in place, rather than deleting first and re-adding from memory.

The common real-world tasks

• Service verification: a TXT record with a long random-looking value, added at the bare domain or a name the service specifies. Add it exactly as given, verify in the service, and leave the record in place afterwards unless the service says it can be removed.
• Pointing a subdomain at a service: a CNAME with the subdomain as the name and the service's hostname as the value.
• Email security records: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are TXT records, covered in our article on why email lands in spam. These are the records where a mistake hurts most quietly, mail keeps sending but starts failing checks, so we recommend the ticket route for these specifically.
• MX changes for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365: possible here, and covered by the providers' instructions, but remember the Email Routing setting must change too, as explained in our article on email going to the wrong place after moving providers. Missing that second step is the most common self-service mistake we clean up.

Verifying your change

Check the record from the outside at dnschecker.org: enter the exact name you created, select the record type, and confirm the value appearing across the checker's locations matches what you entered. If the service that requested the record still reports it missing after an hour, re-check the name and value character by character before assuming propagation is slow, in our experience the typo is likelier.

Good to know

Zone Editor only exists for domains using our nameservers. If your domain's DNS is hosted elsewhere, at the registrar or a service like Cloudflare, records must be edited there, and changes made in cPanel will appear to save but do nothing, cPanel is editing a map nobody consults. Our article on what nameservers are explains who holds the map, and dnschecker.org's NS lookup settles it for any domain in seconds. If it turns out your DNS is elsewhere and you would rather it were with us, a support ticket starts that move.