# How to add an IP address to the SPF record

A situation that might arise is that **you already have an SPF record** on your domain but you want to **allow a new IP address** or range of IPs to send email from your domain.

The first thing to keep in mind is that you cannot have more than one SPF record, so **make sure you modify the existing one**. This is very important as multiple SPF records will produce an error and prevent the SPF check from succeeding, according to the specification.

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If you need a refresher on SPF, the syntax and how to build the TXT record, read our [How to set up SPF](/learn/email/spf/setup) guide.

</DocsInfoBlock>

## Adding a single IPv4 or IPv6

Let's say your TXT record looks like this:

```
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all
```

To allow a single IPv4 address,  like `192.0.2.0`, add an `ip4` directive:

```
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ip4:192.0.2.0 ~all
```

It doesn't really matter if you put it before or after the existing directives, as long as it's before the `~all` or `-all` and after the initial `v=spf1` tag. Also make sure that you add a space before `ip4` and after the IPv4 address.

In the case of IPv6, you should use the `ip6` directive. Here's an example with a random IPv6:

```
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ip6:2a00:1450:4002:410::200e ~all
```

If you're wondering whether the colons in the IPv6 address mess up with the SPF syntax, they don't: this is the correct format as specified by the standard.

## Adding an IP range

SPF supports the CIDR syntax, so you can add a whole IPv4 or IPv6 subnet or prefix in an SPF directive.

Here's an example:

```
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ip4:192.0.2.0/24 ~all
```

There's nothing special about it and it works as you would expect.

If you already have IP ranges in your SPF record and want to add a new one, you should try to merge overlapping or contiguous ranges. There are [online tools](https://iptoolsonline.net/)  and [CLI tools](https://github.com/zhanhb/cidr-merger) if you don't want to do that manually.

---

This is it. Remember that SPF alone isn't enough to prevent email spoofing, i.e. preventing other people from abusing your domain. For that you would need DMARC; you can learn more about it [here](/blog/why-you-need-dmarc).