Agents and end users can send each other attachments through tickets. Zendesk Support accepts attachments from users sent in via the API, email, web form, and Web Widget channels in your Help Center.
Administrators can configure how attachments are handled in a number of ways, including setting privacy rules, end user permissions, and attachment methods.
This article includes the following topics:
About email attachments
Agents and end users can add attachments when creating or updating a ticket, or replying to an email notification. The attachments become linked attachments, which are links to external files that can be used to download the attachments, if and when they’re needed. This is the default behavior for attachments sent by email and this is what happens when email attachments are not enabled.
If email attachments are enabled, the behavior is different. Agents and end users can send email attachments instead of linked attachments. Email notifications caused by creating or updating a ticket, or replying to an email, include actual attachments, instead of links to attachments. Email attachments appear as images and are a preview of the first page of the file.
All files attached via email are scanned for harmful viruses before being sent in an email notification. If an attachment is found to include a virus, it is not included in the email notification. Instead, the recipient is sent an error message stating an attached file was not sent, and recommends they contact the original sender.
The sender does not receive a notification when an attachment is not sent.
- Inline attachment: You can drag and drop files into the body of an email or comment. The image of the file appears wherever you dropped the file.
- Appended attachment: Attachments that appear at the bottom of a comment and that send as part of the comment's email notification.
When email attachment file size limitations are exceeded, links to attachments appears in email notifications instead (see Attachment size limitations).
Here are examples of what attachments look like to agents and end users.
Situation | Example |
---|---|
Linked email attachment in an email notification in Gmail account |
|
Email attachment in an email notification in Gmail account |
|
Attachment in the ticket interface in Support |
|
Enabling email attachments for agents
The default attachment configuration allows your agents to add files to ticket comments and email notifications as links. You can allow agents to attach files directly to the comment. This type of attachment is stored in Zendesk Support and is accessible from the ticket interface. You can attach any file type you want.
You can also allow end users to add attachments to tickets (see Allowing end users to attach files to tickets).
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Tickets.
- Under the Settings tab, select Include attachments in emails.
Note: This setting does not appear and cannot be enabled if secure downloads is enabled.
- At the bottom of the page, click Save tab.
Once enabled, when an agent attaches a file to a comment, it is included as an attachment rather than a link. Only files attached to the current ticket comment are included in the email notification. Files attached to earlier ticket comments are not attached to later email notifications.
For information about how to send an attachment as an agent, see Adding attachments to ticket comments.
Allowing end users to attach files to tickets
You can allow end users to send attachments when filing a ticket or responding to an email notification. The permissions granted to agents, described in Enabling email attachments for agents, apply to end users when this setting is configured.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Tickets.
- Next to Attachments, select the Customer can attach files check box.
- Click Save tab.
Enabling private attachments
Regular attachments to tickets are secured using a URL with an attachment token that is considerably complex and random, but are visible to anyone with the URL and token. When relying on this type of security, if an email notification is misdirected to someone other than the intended end user, sensitive information may be accidentally exposed.
If sensitive documents are attached to your tickets, especially identification documents such as passports and driver's licenses, you can enable private attachments. When enabled, agents and end users will be required to sign in to view attachments.
Note the following about enabling private attachments:
- Private attachments can only be used if Guide is activated. If Guide isn't activated, private attachments prevent end users from downloading attachments since they can't be authenticated.
- If you enable private attachments, it will also disable inline images for users who aren't signed in.
- When an attachment is associated with a ticket, visibility is restricted to users with access to the ticket.
- In the Zendesk Agent Workspace, this setting also applies to attachments sent as part of a live chat, but it does not apply to social messaging or Zendesk messaging attachments (see Securing chat attachments in the Zendesk Agent Workspace).
To enable private attachments
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Tickets.
- Next to Attachments, select the Enable secure downloads check box.
Note: Include attachments in emails doesn't appear and cannot be enabled if secure downloads is enabled. Additionally, when you enable secure downloads, agents won't be able to copy and paste images from their computer into ticket comments.
- Click Save tab.
Attachments are not indexed by search engines unless the link for the attachment itself has been published in a Help Center article or something similar. This is the case whether private attachments is on or off. Additionally, when this setting is enabled users will not be able to copy and paste images directly in to tickets.
Attachment size limitations
- Email attachment (meaning an inline and appended attachment) limit for a single file is 7 MB.
The total of all email attachments cannot exceed 10 MB. When these limits are exceeded, Support will attempt to process the attachment as a linked attachment instead.
- Linked attachment for a single file is 50 MB.
If you try to attach a file that is larger than 50 MB, an error message will display and inform you that the file is too large. The attachment will be dropped, meaning it will not be attached to the ticket (as either an email or linked attachment).
For more information about attachment types, see About email attachments.
Attachments from earlier comments are included in email notifications as linked attachments. If you add multiple attachments to a reply, the attachments are prioritized based on the attachment type and size. Inline attachments take precedence over appended attachments when calculating size limits. Note that when inline attachments are sent as links, they still appear as images in the body of the email notification.
The scenarios below describe how this works.
Scenario 1
- Email attachment A (3 MB)
- Email attachment B (6 MB)
- Files A and B are included as email attachments.
Scenario 2
- Inline attachment A (5 MB)
- Email attachment B (5 MB)
- Email attachment C (4 MB)
- Inline attachment A is sent as an email attachment.
- Attachments B and C are included as file links, as they push the total email attachment file size over 10 MB.
Scenario 3
- Inline attachment A (5 MB)
- Inline attachment B (6 MB)
- Inline attachment C (4 MB)
- Attachment A is included as an email attachment.
- Attachment B is included as a file link, as it pushes the total email attachment file size over 10 MB.
- Attachment C is included as a real attachment, as it brings the total email attachment file size to 9 MB.
56 Comments
As Dan indicated with his statement that your comment had been "marked as an area of product feedback," your comments have been passed along to the product teams. However, it's not something they have opted to change at this point in time.
Your post was archived as it went over a year without any votes or additional comments from other users; feedback posts that are inactive for an extended period of time get archived as a part of routine maintenance. They're still visible to product teams, just not end-users. Your feedback continues to be on file with the product team, and if and when they review this part of the workflow it will surface to them. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
We have multiple ticket forms. Is there a way to enable the "Customers can attach files" option for a specific ticket? Our use case is we serve both public end-users (anonymous, do not log into the help center) and internal end-users. We would like our internal end users to be able to attach files via form or email, but we do not want the public facing ticket form to allow for attachments to be included in their form submission. Currently it seems as if our only option is all or nothing.
Hi,
Is there any way to remove the functionality to download attachments or limit who can do this?
Hi Pedro -
If you enable private attachments then only users with access to the ticket will be able to download an attachment.
Let us know if that works or if you have further questions!
"when you enable Require authentication to download, agents will not be able to copy and paste images from their computer into ticket comments."
Is there a chance you will enable agents to copy/paste images inline into the body of a ticket post here soon? This is really hampering our ability to post meaningful comments to our clients, we have to attach a document with the full description including images if we want to use inline images.
Hi,
Would the trigger "Comment text --> Contains the following string --> ___" search through the text of an attachment?
Thanks
Hello Ayal,
So while Triggers can search through the text that is native to that individual tickets, attachments are not able to be searched in the same manner.
Please let us know if there is anything else we can clarify for you or if there is anything else you have a question on.
Hello! My compliance team has requested clarification on virus scanning capabilities. In this article it states "all files attached via email are scanned for harmful viruses before being sent in an email notification," but does this apply to files attached when a ticket is submitted via web form, such as in the Guide Help Center?
Thank you!
Jessica,
Attachments via the web form in Guide Help Center are not automatically scanned at the time of upload.
Thank you Matt McLean! Do you know if it's possible to disable attachments from the web form, but continue to allow them in emails?
Jessica,
It is possible to do with some coding. Copied from the first comment on https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/208167958-Hiding-attachment-system-fields-on-ticket-form:
Copy the code to your JS tab right under the $(.document.ready) function.
(My only modification to the above code was to remove the lines that would otherwise strip out the Subject and Description fields, leaving only the lines for hiding the Attachments section.)
Perfect! This is exactly what I needed. Thanks for your help!
If you also want to disable ticket attachments in the Web Widget, see this article:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021456894-How-do-I-disable-ticket-attachments-in-the-Web-Widget-
To disable attachments in Chat, see this page:
Zendesk help>Chat>Using Chat>Setting up Zendesk Chat: Managing file sending options
"when you enable Require authentication to download, agents will not be able to copy and paste images from their computer into ticket comments."
In that case, how can our agents do to send information attached? I assumed that the attachement was converted into an url...
Hey Pedro,
If you have Require authentication to download enabled, agents could still send attachments to end-users via the ticket editor, by clicking on the paper clip icon in the toolbar.
Ok so agents, can still send attachments as "usual". What really changes is the fact that the end-user will have to login to the help center for them to be able to see the piece attached. If they don't have an account, that would be poor user experience.
Did the limit increase for attachments to help center articles, too?
Hi Jacqueline,
Thanks for your question! The file size increase announced today pertains specifically to tickets. Attachment sizes for articles have not increased.
Thanks for the quick reply, Nicole. I was hoping... I have an article that serves as a PDF Library. I can't attach the PDFs and have to use links to Box because the total exceeds the 20MB limit. I can't even attach one PDF in the 10 most used languages because they exceed the limit. I hope increasing the total size of attachments in articles will be implemented as well.
You're welcome, Jacqueline. Sorry I didn't have more exciting news for you.
Is there a list of file types that are accepted and/or not accepted that can be attached?
Hey Amanda,
There are no file type restrictions as far as I'm aware. If you're looking to restrict attachments, you can take a look at the Attachment Manager App which I've linked for you.
I hope this helps!
Thanks Brett Bowser I appreciate the info!
Regarding:
Ok so agents, can still send attachments as "usual". What really changes is the fact that the end-user will have to login to the help center for them to be able to see the piece attached. If they don't have an account, that would be poor user experience.
Is there any way to customize the authentication source?
Hi there,
Is there really not a way to simply attach files to Social tickets - that isn't a workaround?
We have just upgraded our account and we are keen to ensure we can attach images in response to FB messenger enquiries - but seems this is still impossible!
Thanks
Hi Daniel, Can you please confirm if your FB is EU or not? If so, there are restrictions there we can dive into.
Please sign in to leave a comment.