Live RFC 8461 publication check
MTA-STS policy checker
Verify the DNS announcement and exact HTTPS policy publication, then see policy mode, cache lifetime, MX pattern count, and companion TLS-RPT status.
INPUT
Mail domain
Enter the organizational domain that receives mail. Policy discovery uses _mta-sts.example.com and https://mta-sts.example.com/.well-known/mta-sts.txt.
RESULT
Published policy
Enter a mail domain to inspect its STSv1 announcement, HTTPS policy, and TLS reporting record.
- Announcement records
- Announcement
- HTTPS policy
- Policy mode
- max_age
- MX patterns
- TLS-RPT
The free checker omits raw TXT records, policy contents, MX hostnames, reporting destinations, and remediation actions. It validates publication, not STARTTLS negotiation, each MX certificate, sender cache state, or a real delivery.
Three separate states
Publication is more than one DNS record
RFC 8461 requires one v=STSv1 record with an alphanumeric policy id. Multiple STSv1 records prevent policy discovery.
The policy must be available at the exact /.well-known/mta-sts.txt path. Redirects are not followed, and the response is bounded to 64 KB.
A live check cannot see every sender's cached policy. A previously cached policy can continue to affect delivery until its max_age expires.
Primary references: RFC 8461 SMTP MTA Strict Transport Security and RFC 8460 SMTP TLS Reporting.