Free domain tools: WHOIS, DNS, email and SSL.

All four tools are free and need no account. The DNS and email checks ask Cloudflare’s public resolver straight from your browser; the WHOIS and SSL checks run through our server. Not sure what a result means? The Learn lessons explain DNS records, nameservers and the rest in plain English.

What does the WHOIS lookup show?

It asks the registry whether the name is registered. If it’s available, you see the price and a link to register it. If it’s registered through Chill Domains, you see whether it’s locked against transfer, whether ID protection is on, and its nameservers. For .com and other global names it also shows the expiry date; for .au names it doesn’t (see below). It doesn’t show the owner’s contact details or auto-renew setting; the holder sees those in their dashboard. If it’s registered somewhere else, we link you to the official lookup: auDA’s WHOIS for .au names and ICANN Lookup for most others.

For .au names, auDA’s public WHOIS shows the registrant’s name, ABN or ACN and eligibility details, but not their street address or phone number. For .com and other gTLDs, public lookups usually show the registrar, status and expiry date, while personal contact details are often redacted.

Why can’t I see the expiry date of a .com.au?

auDA’s public WHOIS doesn’t publish creation or expiry dates for .au names, so a public lookup can’t show when a .com.au expires. auDA removed the dates because they were being used to send unsolicited renewal notices. Our toolbox follows the same rule and shows no .au expiry date, even for names registered with us. If you hold the domain, your provider’s dashboard shows the expiry date (for names registered with us, that’s your Chill Domains dashboard). The public record does show when the licence was last modified.

How do I check a domain’s DNS records?

Type the domain and open the DNS tab. It looks up the A, AAAA, CNAME, TXT and NS records through Cloudflare’s public resolver (1.1.1.1) and lists each with its TTL:

• A and AAAA: the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses the name points to, usually your web host.
• CNAME: an alias that points the name at another hostname.
• TXT: text records, used for things like site verification and email sender policies.
• NS: the nameservers that hold the domain’s DNS records.

A     300s   203.0.113.10
NS    3600s  ns1.example.net.

TTL is how long, in seconds, resolvers may cache an answer, so a change can take that long to show everywhere. The tool checks the exact name you type, so look up www.example.com separately if you use it. “No records found” means the name doesn’t exist or publishes none of those record types.

How do I check MX, SPF and DMARC records?

The MX & Email tab checks the records that decide whether a domain can receive email and whether its mail can be trusted:

• MX records name the servers that accept mail for the domain; the lowest priority number is tried first. With no MX records, the domain usually can’t receive email.
• SPF is a TXT record starting v=spf1 that lists the servers allowed to send mail for the domain. A domain should have exactly one; two or more cause an SPF error.
• DMARC is a TXT record at _dmarc. plus the domain. Its p= policy tells receivers what to do with mail that fails the checks: none (monitor only), quarantine (treat as suspicious) or reject. Without DMARC, receivers have no policy from you and nowhere to send reports.

MX    pri 10  mail.example.com
TXT   @       v=spf1 include:_spf.example.net -all
TXT   _dmarc  v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com

The tab also guesses the mail provider (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and others) from the MX hostnames. It doesn’t check DKIM, because a DKIM lookup needs the selector name your mail provider uses.

How do I check when an SSL certificate expires?

The SSL tab connects to the domain on port 443 (HTTPS) and reads the certificate it’s serving right now: who it’s issued to, who issued it, the dates it’s valid from and until, the days remaining, and the other hostnames it covers. Fewer than 14 days left is flagged as expiring soon. It checks the exact hostname you type, and www. can have a different certificate. For a full configuration report, follow the SSL Labs link; the certificate transparency log link (crt.sh) shows certificates that have been issued for the name.

Found a name you like? If it’s available, see prices and register it. If you already own it somewhere else, you can transfer it to Chill Domains: no transfer fee. A .au is free to transfer unless it’s within 90 days of expiry, when the transfer includes its renewal; a .com transfer includes one year’s renewal at the normal price.