When you set up Zendesk Support, you have one related email address: support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com. Emails received at this address become tickets.
For each support address you add, the from address will match the support address the ticket is sent to. For example, tickets sent to help@acme.zendesk.com will reply from help@acme.zendesk.com.
Understanding the end-user experience
When you add a support address, a preview pane shows you exactly what end-users will see in their email in-boxes so you understand the end-user experience.
What end-users see as the from address depends on whether you are using a Zendesk address or an external email address to receive support requests. Also, using personalized replies changes the way the Reply From looks to end-users.
Using Zendesk email addresses as support addresses
If you are using Zendesk email addresses, the following table shows what the Sent To and Reply From addresses might look like when users email one of your known support addresses.
Sent to (address the user sends email to) | Reply from (address the user sees in the reply email) | Example |
---|---|---|
support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com | Support address name <support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com> | Acme Support <support@acme.zendesk.com>
Note: If the support address
does not have a name, the Reply From looks like this:
<support@acme.zendesk.com>
|
help@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com | Support address name <help@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com> | Acme Help <help@acme.zendesk.com> |
sales@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com | Support address name <sales@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com> | Acme Sales <sales@acme.zendesk.com> |
Using external email addresses as support addresses
Sent to (address the user sends email to) |
Reply from (address the user sees in the reply email) |
Example |
---|---|---|
support@mycompany.com | Support address name <support@mycompany.com> | Acme Support <support@acme.com>
Note: If the support address does not
have a name, the Reply From looks like this:
<support@acme.com>
|
help@mycompany.com | Support address name <help@mycompany.com> | Acme Support <help@acme.com> |
sales@mycompany.com | Support address name <sales@mycompany.com> | Acme Support <sales@acme.com> |
Using personalized replies with support addresses
When personalized replies is enabled, the Reply From address will match the support address it was sent to and it will also include the replying agent or end user's name.
For information about using personalized replies, see Enabling personalized email replies.
The following table shows what the Sent To and Reply From addresses might look like when you have personalized replies enabled, and users email one of your known support addresses.
Sent to (address the user sends email to) |
Reply from (address the user sees in the reply email) |
Example |
---|---|---|
support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com | User Name (Support address name) <support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com> | Claire Grenier (Acme Support) <support@acme.zendesk.com>
Note: If the
support address does not have a name, the Reply From looks like this: Claire
Grenier <support@acme.zendesk.com>
|
sales@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com | User Name (Support address name) <sales@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com> | Ben Gunther (Acme Sales) <sales@acme.zendesk.com> |
support@mycompany.com | User Name(Support address name) <support@mycompany.com> | Claire Grenier (Acme Support) <support@acme.com> |
sales@mycompany.com | User Name (Support address name) <sales@mycompany.com> | Ben Gunther (Acme Sales) <sales@acme.com> |
Adding support addresses
- Connect external address Use this option to add an existing external email addresses.
-
Create new Zendesk address Use this option to add variations of your Zendesk
email address.Note: There is also a Connect Other option for adding support addresses that should be used cautiously. For more information, see this support tech note.
Your original system support address always appears at the top of your list of support addresses, followed by your default support address, if it's not the same as your system support address. Every time a ticket is created from an email that was sent to one of your support addresses, the verification timestamp for the support address is updated.
This section covers the following topics
Adding a Zendesk support address
Zendesk addresses are variations of your original support address: support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com. For example, help@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com and feedback@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com. You can add as many Zendesk support addresses as needed.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email.
- In the Support addresses section, click Add
address,
then select Create new Zendesk address.
- Enter an address you'd like to use for receiving support requests.
- Click Create now.
The email address is added to your list of support addresses.
Adding an external support address
External email addresses are owned and maintained by you, outside of your Zendesk. For example, support@mycompany.com. If you are adding support addresses for external email addresses, additional steps outside of Zendesk are required to set up forwarding from your email server to your Zendesk.
It is not recommended that you use a distribution group email or an email alias as an external support address.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email.
- In the Support addresses section, click Add
address,
then select Connect external address.
- Enter your
existing support email address, then click
Go.
If you'd like to use our Gmail connector instead to automatically connect to a Gmail account, see Enabling automatic ticket creation for your Gmail inbox. This is recommended only if you expect low email volume.
- Complete the
on-screen steps to set up forwarding on your email server.
This is done outside of your Zendesk, and the exact steps depend on your mail server. For help, see Forwarding incoming email to Zendesk Support.
- After you have set up email forwarding on your sever, click Yes, I finished,
then click
Verify.
A test email is automatically sent to that address to verify that you've set up email forwarding properly. A message beside the address indicates that you are waiting for verification.
If the test is successful, you have set up forwarding properly, and the message indicates that the address is verified.
If the test fails, you are alerted in the notification. After resolving any issues with the forwarding verification, you must perform the forwarding check again. If you resolve the forwarding issue, but do not retry the forwarding check, tickets submitted to the email address will create tickets, but will not send Zendesk Support notification emails.
After you set up forwarding, you should add an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record to verify that Zendesk can send outgoing email on behalf of your email server (see Setting up SPF for Zendesk to send email on behalf of your email domain). This is optional, but recommended.
Accepting wildcard email addresses for support requests
As an alternative to, or in addition to, using support addresses, you can enable end-users to send email to any variation of your Zendesk address, regardless of whether it's as a known support address. For example, if a customer misspelled your support email address (for example, biling@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com) the email can be accepted and a ticket created. These types of variations are referred to as wildcards. This option can be used as an alternative to, or in addition to, support addresses.
For example, you don't need to explicitly declare any of these email variations in your Zendesk.
Wildcard email addresses use your default support address as the Reply From address. So any email sent to a variation of your Zendesk Support email address that is not a known support address, will use your default support address as the Reply From. If you have multiple brands, the default support address for your default brand will be used as the Reply From.
To enable wildcard email addresses
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email.
- Click Enable for Accept wildcard emails.
- Click Save.
Removing a support address
You can remove any support address, except the original system support address (support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com), your Gmail connector address (if any), or your current default support address. If you selected another support address as your default (other than your system support address) you can delete that support address if you make another support address the default first.
When you delete a support address, outgoing email notifications will no longer be sent from that address. Any tickets using the deleted support address will be given to the default address.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email.
- In Support addresses, hover over the address you want to remove, then click
Delete.
You cannot delete your original system support address (support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com) or your Gmail connector address, if any. You also cannot delete your current default support address while it is the default (if you selected a support address other than your system support address as your default). To delete that support address, make another support address the default first.
- In the confirmation, click Delete address.
Alternatively, if you do not want to delete the address, close the confirmation box to cancel the action.
The support address is removed from your list.
Setting a default support address
Remember, when you created your Zendesk, one email address was set up for you: support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com. This system support address is used as your default support address, unless you change the default.
Your default support address is used as the sending address for notifications when a ticket is created manually, when a ticket is sent directly to your default support address, or when a ticket is created through a channel other than email.
Additionally, the default support address is used as the Reply From address in replies to users when you have the wildcard emails option enabled, and an end-user sends email to an address that is not a known support address.

You can change the default support address at any time. The option to make a support address the default will only appear if the address has been verified (see Adding support addresses).
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email.
- In Support addresses, hover over the address you want to make the default, then
click Make default.
The label (default) appears beside your new default address, and that address moves up under your system support address in your support addresses list.
Editing support addresses
You can edit the name of an existing support address, but you cannot edit the email address for an existing support address. If you need to edit the email address itself, delete the support address and add it again.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email.
- In Support addresses, click Edit beside the support address you want to edit.
- Add, change, or remove the support address name.
- Click Save.
The updates to your address appear in the support addresses list.
Receiving email at your support addresses
Emails sent to any of your known support addresses become tickets in your Zendesk. And, if you have enabled wildcard emails (see Accepting wildcard email addresses for support requests), then emails sent to any variation of your Zendesk address, regardless of whether it's a known support address, become tickets in your Zendesk.
For tickets received via email, you can see which address it was sent to at the top of the ticket.
You can set up business rules, views, and SLA policies for tickets sent to your support address by using the "Ticket: received at" condition.
If you have set up multibrand, then the ticket receives the brand associated with the support address the email was sent to (see Adding email support addresses for multiple brands).
29 Comments
It would be really nice to have the ability to tie an address to a group so that the address is updated when the group is updated. i.e. Customer sends something to support@, but it really was an accounting issue. When moved to the accounting group we should now be notifying them from accounting@domain instead of support@domain. I can see where some people might not want this, but we should be able to at least set this as part of a trigger. i.e. Trigger would have group x use email address x.
We also need this when starting an email since the accounting group might need to send a new message to someone and it makes no sense for that to come from a support address.
@Scott - totally agree. This is a major shortcoming. I have multiple support addresses set up (customerservice@, marketing@, ithelpdesk@) all of which are associated with different groups of individuals within the business. To have everyone creating tickets under the default, and no subsequent way of changing that, is highly limiting.
Hey guys!
While it's not possible to tie a Support Address to a specific group the way you're describing, we do have an app that could be a good solution for the problem you're encountering. You can find more information about that here: Select an Address.
Bear in mind that this is one of our Zendesk Labs apps, which means it isn't officially supported. But it should get you where you need to go! Hopefully that helps!
Jessie, While I'm glad to see there has been an attempt at allowing us to control the email address, this attempt isn't usable in macros, etc, so it is essentially useless. We have a situation where our agents are creating a lot of tickets on behalf of end users and changing the from address via additional apps is not really a suitable workaround.
Scott is correct. Changing the email address after you've already sent a default message, or adjusting your whole workflow to introduce what is essentially a workaround, is not worthwhile for such a fundamental function of the software.
Hey guys!
I'd encourage you to post this feedback in our Product Feedback Forum. Our Product Managers take customer suggestions into consideration when planning our roadmap, and this kind of feedback really helps them to understand how people are using Zendesk.
I was able to find a couple of posts related to what you're talking about here, but this is the one that I think is most relevant: Change sender address when creating a NEW ticket on behalf of the requester. Our Product Managers see all of these posts and comments, so be sure to add your vote and detailed use case.
Thank you for this post. Very helpful.
Something is not too clear to me.
When I opened my Zendesk account I created an admin with the main support email address I will be using. In my case info@mydomain.com.
This causes the same error someone else posted here "Email is in use by a user. Remove it from the user before adding it here" when I tried to add that address as a support address.
To bypass this issue i changed the admin email address to my personal email, however i noticed that all the LiveChat offline messages (the ones sent when no users are online) are sent to the admin email address.
Wouldn t it be best if our Zopim Chat is linked to our Support Address rather than the Admin Address?
E.
@Emiliano -
Looks like you figured out your issue with your new support address, but just to clarify - an email address can be used for either a user or a support address, but not both.
As to the second point - take a look at this article from our friends at Zopim:
https://zopim.zendesk.com/entries/23806751-Receiving-mail-notifications-for-offline-messages
You can change your log in email on your dashboard: http://dashboard.zopim.com/#Personal/profile. Just click on the "Change your login email address" link below your current Login Email or you can just do it here directly: https://www.zopim.com/account/change_email.
I hope this helps! If you have any questions just contact us at support@zendesk.com
For those who encounter issues when adding a forwarding from an external email address within Microsoft Exchange, here's a helpful article to view: https://support.microsoft.com/de-de/help/2773786/550-550-5.1.1-or-550-5.7.1-ndr-message-when-an-external-user-sends-an-email-message-to-a-universal-distribution-group. [NOTE: It's possible that you may need to uncheck the box in the Exchange Server properties for the account which required senders to be authenticated]
Hi,
When i want to add a second email address i can open the add address dropdown but none of the 3 options are working. Any ideas?
Hey Paul!
Can you elaborate on what's not working? Are the options greyed out?
Hey there!
I'd like to ask for some clarity on a point above, under the Adding an External Support Address header:
"It is not recommended that you use a distribution group email or an email alias as an external support address."
One of our current workflow is to setup forwarding within a Google group distro. Why is this not recommended?
Thanks!
Hey Travis!
Do you mean that emails sent to this distribution list will be automatically forwarded into Zendesk to create tickets? Or are you just wanting to set it up so that emails can be manually forwarded from that group?
Hi,
Why is it not possible to delete a Gmail connector email address?
We've transferred management of our Gmail connector address to a different party so it needs to be disconnected from our Zendesk as we will no longer be managing it. How can I make sure this happens correctly?
Kind regards,
Amber
Welcome to the Community, Amber!
We have a Tech Note that outlines how to switch from the Gmail connector to support email forwarding, which you can find here. That should get you where you need to go, but if you're still stuck let us know and we'll see what we can do!
Hi,
Is it possible to use a non-default external address as the reply from address for requests submitted by form? I have two forms and would like the reply from each form to come from different email addresses.
Hi Ernie!
Replies to tickets created through a channel other than email (a ticket form, in this case) will be sent from your default support address.
There's not a way to change this behavior natively, but you can use the Select an Address app to change which email address sends out a reply. You can find more information on this here. Hope this helps!
Hi!
We have been using a "gmail Group" as support email address (i.e. info@mycompany.com, which we have been forwarding to the support@mycompany.zendesk.com). The forwarding is working fine.
I now want to add this address (i.e. info@mycompany.com) as support address as per this article.
I am following instructions above:
* add external address
* I do NOT use "Do you use G-Suite" (because it's a group and not an email inbox, so there is no sign-in for info@mycompany.com)
* I enter "info@mycompany.com" in the "Enter current support address" field
* I get to the "Set up email forwarding" dialog and press "NEXT" since I've already done this for the group (see above), and it's been working for many months
And this is where things fail with the message: "Please make sure you’ve updated your Gmail settings by following the steps above."
Please help!
I have since found this article which explains non-obvious solution: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115006129848-Using-Google-Groups-as-a-support-address
Hey Jochen!
Justin here from the advocacy team. You mentioned in the message that you're attempting to use a Google Group to forward in tickets, rather than use a dedicated inbox. Google Groups are actually not a supported workflow for email forwarding with Zendesk as issues like this one are known to crop up. We do have a doc with more information on the Google group routing process that you can reference below, but know that the information listed there is for instructional purposes only.
https://zdsk.co/2AmCZ3F
If you do end up using a normal inbox and are still running into this issue, I would recommend submitting a ticket to support@zendesk.com along with your account subdomain so us agents can take a closer look and assist.
Have a great day!
From your friendly Zendesk customer support Hero - The Fastest Way to Great Customer Support
Does anyone know how I can add a department to the "Submit a request" form on Guide?
Right now I have sale and support and I need the customer to be able to choose.
Hey Al,
If you have a plan that allows for Ticket Forms, you can have them select a ticket form for whichever team they're trying to reach.
If you don't, you can have a single form, but have a custom field with a drop down asking them which team they want to contact, then have Triggers that route the tickets in Support appropriately.
Hope that helps
Thanks thanks
I am running into an issue similar to the one that Emiliano posed - I need to add a support address that happens to be an end user in Zendesk. However, the end user profile has 102 associated tickets. Is it possible to use an end user email as a support email without deleting all the tickets?
Hey Mario,
It looks like you have a ticket with our Customer Advocacy team related to this issue and they were able to help.
If you have any other questions or concerns please let us know!
Good afternoon.
My organization would like to add a second support email to handle requests for a particular group. When setting up this secondary address, do we need to add SPF records for that address as well? it is on the same domain as our Primary support address. For example, we primarily use helpdesk@mycompany.com and want to add secondarysupport@mycompany.com to handle another subset of support related issues. Will we need to add SPF records for that secondary address so Zendesk can handle replies and replies appear as they are coming from that address?
Hello Barrett Brewington,
You are correct that you will need to add SPF records for that additional address. I've gone ahead and linked an article that goes into that process in further detail for your reference.
Allowing Zendesk to send email on behalf of your email domain
Best regards
Thank you for your reply, Devan.
Since we already had SPF records in place for our domain, we didn't need to add again. We just added the other email address in the Email Channel Settings, then created triggers to ensure emails to that address go to the appropriate group.
I'm sitting here trying to create a customer list based on Good Ratings or Bad Ratings via Zendesk,
It seems to be impossible.
Is there anyone who could assist me in order to figure that out?
Hi Edwin,
When you say "Good Ratings or Bad Ratings" are you referring to CSAT?
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