The Problem With Getting Sheet Data In and Out of MX Toolbox
You have a Google Sheet full of domains — client sender domains, acquired company infrastructure, IP addresses from a new network deployment. You need to run diagnostic checks against every one of them and write the results back into the sheet in a way that doesn't cost you an afternoon per run.
MX Toolbox is good at running network diagnostics: DNS lookups, blacklist checks, SMTP tests, mail authentication verification. But moving data between it and your spreadsheet is more work than it should be. The usual flow is pulling up MX Toolbox's web interface, pasting a domain, reading the result, switching back to the sheet, entering each value by hand — and then doing it again for every remaining domain.
Below are the four common ways teams handle this. Only the last one scales.
Method 1: Manual Copy-Paste
The default. Open MX Toolbox in a browser tab, paste a domain into the search box, wait for the diagnostic to run, then read the result and type the relevant values — SPF pass/fail, blacklist count, MX priority — into the corresponding row of your sheet.
For a single domain, that's a minute of work. For fifteen domains, it's fifteen minutes. For 80 sending domains that you need to check before a campaign launch, you're looking at a solid block of your morning gone.
The thing that makes this particularly draining for MX Toolbox specifically is that the results aren't uniform. One domain has three blacklist flags. Another has a DMARC record that needs to be read carefully before you can summarize it. A third has a missing SPF record that you almost skip because the result is just blank. You can't get into a rhythm. Every row demands a fresh read.
Method 2: Zapier or Make
Both platforms have MX Toolbox integrations, or you can hit the MX Toolbox API directly through a custom HTTP action. You can wire up a trigger that fires for each row in a sheet, calls the right MX Toolbox endpoint, and writes the result back to the adjacent columns.
Before you go further — do you know what an API key is? An HTTP action? A Zap with a loop-until-done delay? A response parser that pulls a nested value out of JSON? If those feel unfamiliar, this path isn't the right one. Jump to Method 3 or 4 — you'll get there faster.
If you're still here: the setup is real work. You need to authenticate to the MX Toolbox API, pick the right diagnostic endpoint for each check type, map the response fields to your column letters, handle the case where a domain returns an error instead of a result, and build a separate Zap or flow for each check type you want to run.
Each trigger fires for one row at a time.
That's the ceiling. A Zap can look up the SPF record for row 3, write it to column B, and move on. But it can't roll up a PASS/FAIL summary across all 80 rows, or compare this week's blacklist counts against last week's, or flag only the domains whose DMARC policy changed since the last run. Anything that requires reasoning across the full dataset is outside what automation glue can do.
You probably just need the diagnostic results for your domain list. You probably have no idea how to build an MX Toolbox API flow — and that's not a gap in your resume, it's just not your job. So you push this to whoever on the team knows how to build automations. And now you're waiting on a Slack reply instead of having a report.
Method 3: The Previous Generation — Connector Add-Ons
Until recently, the best option for repeatable spreadsheet-to-diagnostics workflows was a category of add-ons that let you configure a template once — pick your input column, specify the check type, map the output fields — and then run it on demand against whatever was in column A.
That was genuinely useful. The template ran the same way every time. The column layout was consistent. You didn't have to redo the mapping each run.
But you were still responsible for building the template, managing the column assignments, deciding which check type to run for which situation, and updating the config every time the sheet structure changed. The add-on moved the data. The thinking stayed with you. And the moment someone renamed a column or added a new check type to the workflow, the template broke until someone went back in and fixed it.
That was the previous generation. Useful for its time, but it asked a lot from whoever owned the configuration.
The Easy Way: Using SheetXAI in Google Sheets
There is a different approach. SheetXAI is an AI agent that lives inside your Google Sheet. It reads the sheet, understands what you're looking at, and through its built-in MX Toolbox integration it can run diagnostics against every domain in the list and write the results back — for you. No template to configure. No endpoint to identify. No field mapping to manage. You describe what you need.
Example 1: SPF and DKIM check across a client domain list
For every domain in column A, look up its SPF record and DKIM record via MXToolbox, then write the SPF value, DKIM selector status, and any errors into columns B, C, and D
Every domain in the column gets checked. SPF value, DKIM status, and error notes land in columns B, C, D — one row per domain.
Example 2: DMARC policy audit with pass/fail summary
Check the DMARC record for each domain in my Clients sheet column A using MXToolbox and fill in the policy, reporting address, and whether the record passed validation in columns B, C, D
The pattern: you describe the source column, the destination columns, and the diagnostic you want. SheetXAI handles the MX Toolbox calls and the writebacks inline — without you touching the API documentation.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open any Google Sheet with a domain list, then ask it to run a deliverability or DNS diagnostic across column A. The MX Toolbox integration is included in every SheetXAI plan.
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