DNS TTL Migration Planner
Plan your DNS migration with zero downtime. Enter your current TTL and target cutover date to get an exact step-by-step timeline.
Why TTL Matters for Migrations
When you change a DNS record, the old value is still cached by resolvers worldwide for up to the TTL duration. With a 24-hour TTL, some users could see the old IP for a full day after your change.
The solution: lower TTL to 300 seconds (5 minutes) before your planned change, wait for the old high TTL to expire everywhere, then make your change. Maximum propagation delay drops from 24 hours to 5 minutes.
Migration Types
- Website / A record — changing your hosting provider or IP
- Email / MX record — switching email providers
- Nameserver migration — moving to a new DNS provider (Cloudflare, Route 53, etc.)
- Subdomain — changing a CNAME or moving a subdomain to a new host
Frequently Asked Questions
TTL (Time To Live) tells DNS resolvers how long to cache a record before re-querying the authoritative nameserver. A TTL of 3600 means the record is cached for 1 hour. Higher TTLs reduce DNS query load but slow propagation of changes.
If you lower TTL to 300 seconds before making changes, cached records expire within 5 minutes instead of hours or days, making your DNS change propagate much faster worldwide.
For stable records, 3600–86400 seconds is normal. For records you change frequently, 300–900 seconds is appropriate. During migrations, lower to 300s. After confirming the migration worked, raise TTL back to 3600+.
Nameserver records (NS) are controlled by your domain registrar, not your DNS provider. To migrate DNS providers, you update NS records at your registrar. The TTL is set by the registry and is usually 24–48 hours regardless of what you set.