How to Set Up DKIM for Shopify

Shopify sends order confirmations, shipping notifications, abandoned cart emails, and marketing messages from your domain. These are some of the most important emails your business sends. A customer who just placed an order expects an instant confirmation. A shopper who abandoned their cart might come back if the reminder reaches their inbox. Without DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication, these emails are more likely to be flagged as spam, and your customers may never see them.

Why DKIM Matters for Shopify

E-commerce emails are both transactional and time-sensitive. An order confirmation that arrives two hours late (or not at all) creates anxiety. A shipping notification in spam means customers call your support team instead of checking their tracking link. These are not marketing messages people can ignore. They are business-critical communications that directly affect customer satisfaction and revenue.

Without DKIM:

• Shopify sends from their servers, and receiving mail servers cannot verify your authorization
• Emails may display "via shopify.com" next to your store name
• Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook apply stricter filtering to unauthenticated messages
• Customers lose trust when they have to dig through spam for order updates

With DKIM configured, every email from your Shopify store carries a cryptographic signature proving it was authorized by you. Receiving servers verify this signature and treat the message as legitimate, dramatically improving inbox placement.

Before You Start

You will need:

• A Shopify store with a custom domain (not a myshopify.com address)
• A sender email address on your custom domain (e.g., [email protected])
• Access to your domain's DNS settings through your registrar or hosting provider
• About 10 minutes plus DNS propagation time

Shopify's Email Authentication

Shopify has improved its sender authentication significantly. If you use a custom sender email address, Shopify now requires domain authentication. This process sets up DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records together. Shopify walks you through adding the necessary DNS records as part of a single authentication flow, making it straightforward even for non-technical store owners.

Setting Up DKIM for Shopify

Verify Your DKIM Record

After Shopify confirms authentication, use an independent tool to verify the DKIM record is publicly resolvable. This confirms everything is working outside of Shopify's own checks.

What Shopify Emails Does This Cover?

Authenticating your domain in Shopify covers the emails that Shopify itself sends. Here is a breakdown:

Third-Party Shopify Email Apps

Many Shopify stores use third-party platforms alongside Shopify's built-in email. If you use Klaviyo for marketing automation, Mailchimp for newsletters, or any other email service, those platforms send from their own infrastructure with their own DKIM keys.

You can have multiple DKIM records for the same domain, each with a different selector. This is normal and expected. Shopify, Klaviyo, and your business email provider can all coexist with their own DKIM records. Learn more in our guide on multiple DKIM records.

Common Issues

CNAME record not found during verification

The most common cause is DNS propagation delay. Wait at least 30 minutes before troubleshooting. If it still fails, check that you entered the host field correctly. Many DNS providers auto-append your domain, so entering the full hostname (including your domain) creates a double entry like selector._domainkey.yourstore.com.yourstore.com.

DNS provider does not accept underscore in hostnames

Some older DNS providers have trouble with hostnames that start with an underscore (like _domainkey). Most modern providers handle this fine. If yours does not, consider using a provider like Cloudflare for DNS, which fully supports all DKIM-related subdomains.

Custom domain not verified in Shopify

Before you can authenticate email, your custom domain must be properly connected to your Shopify store. If domain authentication is not available, check your domain settings in Settings → Domains first and make sure your custom domain is active and connected.

Using a subdomain for your store

If your Shopify store runs on a subdomain (like shop.yourdomain.com), you need to add the DKIM records under that subdomain's DNS zone. The CNAME hostnames will include the subdomain. Double-check which domain Shopify references during the authentication flow.

Complete Your Authentication

For the best Shopify email deliverability, configure all three authentication protocols:

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) authorizes Shopify's mail servers to send on behalf of your domain. Shopify may include SPF-related records in the authentication flow. Verify your SPF record at spfrecordcheck.com.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) tells receiving servers what to do when SPF or DKIM checks fail. Add a DMARC record if you do not already have one:

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]

Check your DMARC at dmarcrecordchecker.com. Start with p=none for monitoring, then move to p=quarantine and eventually p=reject once you are confident all legitimate email is authenticated.

If you need custom DKIM keys for services that do not provide their own, dkimcreator.com can generate key pairs for any domain. And for ongoing monitoring of your entire email authentication stack, deliverabilitychecker.com watches your DNS records daily so you catch problems before they cost you sales.

Monitor Your DKIM Records

Checking once is good. Monitoring continuously is better. The Email Deliverability Suite watches your SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX records daily and alerts you when something breaks.