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Set up email forwarding from Google Workspace

For paid Google Workspace accounts (the @yourdomain.com kind), use a Gmail routing rule instead of per-user forwarding. Cleaner SPF handling, supports shared mailboxes, no verification-email round trip.

If your account is a free @gmail.com address, follow Email forwarding from Gmail instead. Workspace Admin Console is not available there.

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 (e.g., [email protected]).

2. Add a routing rule in the Admin Console

  1. Sign in at admin.google.com as a super admin.
  2. Go to Apps → Google Workspace → Gmail → Routing.
  3. Click Configure (or Add another rule).
  4. Name the rule Forward support@ to message.com.

3. Configure the rule

Settings to use:

  • Affect: Inbound. Only inbound mail.
  • Envelope filter: only affect specific envelope recipients. Add [email protected] (the address customers email).
  • Also deliver to: add a recipient and set it to your message.com inbound address.
  • Account types to affect: Users (and Groups if support is a Google Group).

Click Save. Workspace propagates the rule within a couple of minutes.

4. Verify

  1. From an external account, send a test message to [email protected].
  2. Within seconds, a new conversation appears in app.message.com with channel ticket.
  3. The visitor record shows the original sender's address, not your Workspace address. This is the SPF-clean behaviour you want.
  4. Reply from message.com. The reply lands in the sender's inbox.

Dual delivery vs takeover

Two modes:

  • Dual delivery (default). Mail still lands in your Workspace inbox AND in message.com. Useful during migration so you do not miss anything. Once message.com is your source of truth, drop the Gmail copy.
  • Takeover. Set the Gmail-side delivery to Discard on the same routing rule. Customers email [email protected]; only message.com sees it.

Common pitfalls

  • SPF rejection. Workspace's routing-rule path is the only forwarding mode that does not break SPF. Personal Gmail forwarding rewrites the envelope sender; routing rules preserve it.
  • Group aliases. If support@ is a Google Group, set the rule to affect Groups too. Otherwise the rule never fires.
  • Spam landing in Workspace. Workspace spam filtering runs before the routing rule. Spam never forwards. Whitelist the message.com sending domain in Gmail → Spam, phishing and malware → Email allowlist if you want raw delivery.
  • Multiple inbound addresses. One routing rule per support@ alias is cleanest. Avoid mega-rules that route many addresses.

Next steps