Transferring a domain without breaking mail

Your registrar is who you rent the domain from. Your nameservers decide who answers DNS questions about it. Moving the first does not have to touch the second — and keeping them separate in your head is what makes a transfer safe.

Before you start: write down what you have

Export or screenshot your complete current DNS zone. Not just the records you think matter — all of them. Pay particular attention to:

• MX records and any A record they point at (a common trap: MX → mail.yourpractice.com only works if mail has its own A record).
• TXT records — SPF, DKIM selectors, DMARC, and domain-verification strings for Google, Microsoft or your EHR vendor.
• Any subdomain doing real work: webmail, portal, vpn, booking.

Keep this somewhere you can reach it without the domain working.

The transfer, step by step

1. Check eligibility

   A domain cannot transfer within 60 days of registration or of a previous transfer, or within 60 days of a change to the registrant contact. Check the expiry date too — transferring is easier with a couple of months in hand.

2. Unlock and get the auth code

   At the current registrar, turn off the transfer lock (sometimes “registrar lock” or “clientTransferProhibited”) and request the authorisation code — also called an EPP or transfer code. It arrives by email to the registrant address.

3. Confirm the registrant email works

   The whole process runs through the address on the domain’s WHOIS record. If it is an old employee’s mailbox, fix that first — and note that changing it can restart the 60-day clock.

4. Set nameservers explicitly at the new registrar

   Before or immediately after starting the transfer, enter the nameservers you actually want — the ones you are using today, unless you are deliberately moving DNS as well. Do not accept the default.

5. Start the transfer and approve it

   Enter the auth code at the new registrar. You will get a confirmation email; approve it. The losing registrar may also email — approving there speeds things up.

6. Wait, then verify

   Transfers complete in a few hours to five days. When it lands, check that your nameservers are still what you expect and your MX records still resolve.

Verify nothing moved that should not have

After the transfer completes, confirm the mail path end to end:

dig +short NS yourpractice.com — should be the nameservers you chose
dig +short MX yourpractice.com — should be your mail host
dig +short TXT yourpractice.com — SPF should still be there

Then send a message to a mailbox on the domain from an outside address and confirm it arrives. DNS looking right is not the same as mail flowing.

While you are in there

• Turn on auto-renew and confirm the card on file is current. Expiry is a far more common cause of practice outages than any attack.
• Turn on WHOIS privacy if the registrar offers it free — it cuts the volume of scam “domain renewal” invoices considerably.
• Re-lock the domain once the transfer completes.
• Put the expiry date in a shared calendar, not just one person’s inbox.

FAQ