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Set up email forwarding from Gmail

Turn a personal Gmail address (or a free @gmail.com shared inbox) into a message.com ticket source. Inbound mail becomes a conversation with channel: ticket, replies go out as email. Five minutes.

For Google Workspace accounts (the paid @yourdomain.com kind), use the Workspace routing rule path instead. See Email forwarding from Google Workspace.

1. Get your inbound address

  1. Open app.message.com.
  2. Go to Settings → Tickets → Inbound.
  3. Click Create inbound address. Pick a local part (e.g., support).
  4. Copy the generated address. It looks like [email protected].

2. Add a forwarding address in Gmail

  1. In Gmail, click the gear icon, then See all settings.
  2. Open the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
  3. Click Add a forwarding address.
  4. Paste your message.com inbound address.
  5. Gmail sends a verification email.

3. Confirm the verification email

  1. In message.com, open the inbox. The verification email arrives as a new conversation.
  2. Open it, copy the verification code (or click the verification link).
  3. Back in Gmail, paste the code into the prompt and confirm.

4. Enable forwarding

  1. In Gmail's Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, select Forward a copy of incoming mail to and pick your message.com address.
  2. Choose keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox (recommended for a graceful migration; switch to archive once message.com is your source of truth).
  3. Click Save Changes.

5. Verify

  1. From another email account, send a test message to your Gmail address.
  2. Within seconds, a new conversation appears in app.message.com with channel ticket.
  3. Reply from message.com. The reply goes out via our outbound ESP and lands in the sender's inbox.

Common pitfalls

  • Verification email goes to spam. Check spam in message.com if it does not appear. The widget interface treats it as a normal conversation.
  • Filters that skip the inbox. If you have a Gmail filter set to Skip the Inbox, the forwarding rule still fires (Gmail forwards mail before filters apply). Useful when you want both.
  • Auto-replies and bounces. message.com automatically drops MAILER-DAEMON, Auto-Submitted: auto-replied, and Precedence: bulk messages so they do not create ticket noise.
  • Reply-from address. By default, replies come from [email protected]. To reply as [email protected], connect a custom domain. See Connect custom email domain.

Next steps