DNS Lookup — what it does
Looks up a domain's DNS records — A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, CAA and SRV — through public DNS-over-HTTPS resolvers, straight from your browser. If the resolver you picked does not answer, the next one is tried automatically and the report tells you who answered. It also runs reverse (PTR) lookups when you paste an IP, and reads SPF, DMARC and verification strings out of TXT records.
How to use DNS Lookup
- Type the domain, for example example.com. Paste an IP address instead to run a reverse lookup — the type ticks are ignored because an IP only has a PTR record.
- Pick a resolver: Google (8.8.8.8), Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or Quad9 (9.9.9.9). All three are queried over DNS-over-HTTPS.
- Tick the record types you care about. Use the whole set when you are auditing a domain, or just TXT when you are checking whether an SPF record went live.
- Run it. The report shows the records with their TTLs, which resolver answered, response time and the DNS status code (NOERROR, NXDOMAIN, SERVFAIL).
- Download the raw JSON when you need it in a ticket or a diff between two lookups.
Worked example: did the mail record go live?
You moved mail to a new provider and want to confirm before telling the team. Look up MX on example.com and the report lists each mail host in priority order with its TTL, which resolver answered and how fast — plus the TXT tab, where the SPF string is flagged as “SPF record” so you can see the policy you actually published rather than the one you intended to.
At a glance
| Record types | A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, CAA, SRV, PTR |
|---|---|
| Resolvers | Google, Cloudflare, Quad9 — with automatic fallback between them |
| Reverse lookup | Paste an IPv4 or IPv6 address and the PTR query is built for you, including full IPv6 nibble expansion |
| TXT awareness | Flags SPF, DMARC, Google and Meta site-verification and DKIM-style long tokens |
| Outputs | Report table, plain-text summary, raw JSON download |
| Limits | Cached answers: a record you just changed may still be served until its TTL expires. Zone transfers are not possible from a browser |
| Privacy | Queries go from your browser to the public resolver — SarvTools never sees the domain you looked up |
| Price | Free, no key, no sign-up |
Frequently asked questions
- What is DNS Lookup?
- Look up A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, CAA and SRV records through public DNS-over-HTTPS resolvers, with automatic fallback between Google, Cloudflare and Quad9, reverse (PTR) lookups for IP addresses and SPF/DMARC detection in TXT records.
- Is DNS Lookup free to use?
- Yes — DNS Lookup is free to use, with no sign-up, no install and no account.
- Does DNS Lookup upload or store my data?
- No — DNS Lookup runs entirely in your browser, so your text, files and results never leave your device.
- Do I need to install anything to use DNS Lookup?
- No — it works in any modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari) with no downloads, accounts or plugins.
- How is this different from the DNS Propagation Checker?
- The propagation checker asks the same question (which resolver already serves the new record) across resolvers and compares against an expected value. This tool is the general-purpose lookup: all record types, TTLs, status codes, reverse lookups and TXT interpretation.
- Why does a type show “no records”?
- Either the record does not exist, or the domain has no answer for that type — which is normal: most domains have no SRV or CAA records at all. A genuine NXDOMAIN is labelled separately, because that means the name itself does not exist.
- Does my ISP see the lookup?
- Not through their resolver — the query goes to the public resolver over HTTPS, so it is encrypted in transit and not resolved by your local DNS server.