To examine the state of TXT records for your domain, you can run an application from your computer or use a third party website providing this information. You can do this to ensure that you configured your TXT records correctly to verify your domain, or configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC functionality.

Using a third-party website to investigate TXT records

1. Enter your domain name in the free DNS record lookup tool provided by the following website:

   www.mxtoolbox.com
   
   To query for TXT records only, precede you domain name with "txt:" like so:
   txt: example.com
   
   To see results for a domain already configured to use Google Apps, enter: spottedfig.org

2. Submit the form.
    
3. Verify the results. Depending on their purpose, the values returned should match those on the TXT record values page, for example:
   

   Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
   mail.spottedfig.org.	TXT	IN	30 min	google-site-verification=J2T1DtdmI26z0uBqV4zkTvp3JfJCln5Qz_EDb_f6pag

Using nslookup on your computer

The application nslookup comes with most operating systems and can be used to look up name server details from your Windows, Mac, or Linux command line.

1. To start the command line in Windows, Click Start > Run, enter "cmd" and press enter.
   On Mac or Linux, start the terminal.
    
2. Enter the following command:
   nslookup -q=txt yourdomain.com
    
3. Interpret the output with the help of our example:

   nslookup -q=txt spottedfig.org

   Will return:

   Server:    8.8.8.8 

   Address:    8.8.8.8#53

    Non-authoritative answer:

   spottedfig.org    text = "google-site-verification=J2T1DtdmI26z0uBqV4zkTvp3JfJCln5Qz_EDb_f6pag"
   
   spottedfig.org    text = "v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all"
   
   

   The relevant part of this output comes after the first two lines. Specifically, this tells us that spottedfig.org has two text records. One of these text records has the value "google-site-verification=J2T1DtdmI26z0uBqV4zkTvp3JfJCln5Qz_EDb_f6pag", which may be a string to verify domain ownership. The other text record has the value “v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all” which is used to create an SPF record with Google Apps.

4. Optionally, examine the first two lines of the nslookup output and ensure the IP address shown (in this case, 8.8.8.8) represents your desired name server. You may have configured a different nameserver depending on your ISP or custom configuration. You can also choose to append 8.8.8.8 to the nslookup command to use the Google Public DNS resolution service:
   

   nslookup -q=txt spottedfig.org 8.8.8.8

If you're still having trouble configuring TXT records, contact your domain provider.