Troubleshooting email deliverability

In Zendesk, if you are experiencing issues with email or any of the behaviors below, use this guide.

• An email message was not delivered to or from Zendesk
• You did not receive emails to or from end users
• Emails did not create tickets
• An email was detected as spam

This article contains the topics below.

• Customers don't receive emails sent by agents in Zendesk
• You do not receive emails sent by end users to Zendesk

If customers don't receive emails sent by agents in Zendesk

If your agents send emails from Zendesk, but end users do not receive these emails, follow the steps below.

• Step 1: Check the email delivery status
• Step 2: Verify that a trigger sends your email in the ticket
• Step 3: Verify your email forwarding
• Step 4: Verify your SPF signature
• Step 5: Verify the status with the receiver

Step 1: Check the email delivery status

Check the ticket's recipients for the delivery failure notice in the Agent Workspace. To understand the cause of the error, click the warning icon () next to a user's name or view the ticket events log.

To learn more about email delivery failures, see the article: Understanding email delivery failures in the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

Step 2: Verify that a trigger sends your email in the ticket

If your end users do not receive emails, it is possible that no trigger sent that email in the backend. Triggers are essential to communication and emails in Zendesk. The default triggers that start with Notify requester in the title should not be deactivated.

To ensure that a trigger sends your emails:

1. Open your affected ticket events, by adding /events at the end of the ticket URL
2. Under the comment left by the agent, check if a trigger sent the email
   

If a trigger appears, move to step 2.

If no trigger appears in the ticket, in your triggers:

1. Verify your triggers with the help of the Filter button, and check that triggers with Notify requester in the title do not appear deactivated
   

   

2. If these triggers are deactivated, tick the box of each trigger and click Activate

   
3. If no triggers named Notify requester appear:
   • Create your triggers again
   • Match each of your trigger conditions to this article: About the standard ticket triggers

To troubleshoot your triggers, see this article: Troubleshooting triggers and tickets.

Step 3: Verify your email forwarding

If your trigger sends emails and you use your own email domain in Zendesk:

1. Verify the forwarding status of the email address in your email channel
2. Ensure that no forwarding error appears
   • If errors appear, use this guide: How to fix the Forwarding check failed error
   • If no errors appear, move to step 3

Step 4: Verify your SPF signature

A Sender Policy Framework (SPF) signature allows Zendesk to send emails on your behalf. Without a SPF signature that includes Zendesk in your domain, receivers may block emails sent from Zendesk.

1. Verify the SPF of the email address in your email channel
2. Also vou can verify the SPF record for your domain, such as example.com, with external tools: Mxtoolbox
3. For your domain, if include:mail.zendesk.com does not appear, or your SPF returns errors, your customers may not receive your emails

To resolve any errors, reach out to your domain administrator and ask that person to edit any existing text (TXT) record to add include:mail.zendesk.com, there can only be one TXT record for your SPF. Your administrator can use these articles:

• My SPF record isn't validated
• How to fix the email error messages on forwarding, SPF, DNS, and TXT records

Step 5: Verify the status with the receiver

If a trigger sends your emails and the SPF of your domain contains Zendesk, it is possible that the server of your receiver blocks their incoming emails. You may or may not receive a bounce-back notification in your Suspended tickets view.

That issue cannot be resolved from Zendesk:

1. Contact the receiver with details from the blocked email
2. Ask the receiver to check their spam inbox
3. If the email is not spammed, ask the receiver to verify why their server blocked your email
4. Ask the receiver if they can change their settings to accept future emails from your agents

The delivery of an email relies on assumption and acceptance by the relay server. The server of a company has different filters and variables in place, which are out of reach for Zendesk Customer Support.

If you do not receive emails sent by end users to Zendesk

If tickets were not created from an email, follow these steps:

• Step 1: Verify which email address your end user contacted
• Step 2: Verify the transfer status of your support email address
• Step 3: Verify your Suspended tickets view

Step 1: Verify which email address your end user contacted

If no ticket or comment appears in Zendesk after an incoming email, follow the steps below:

1. Ask the sender to send you a copy of the email
2. Ensure that the receiving email address appears in your email channel

Step 2: Verify the transfer status of your support email address

If you receive emails in Zendesk with a custom email domain of your own:

1. Check the forwarding status of your email address in your email channel
2. Fix any errors, using this guide: How to fix the Forwarding check failed error

Step 3: Verify your Suspended tickets view

If messages from your customers don't create a ticket:

1. Verify if the email appears in the Suspended tickets view
   • You may need to verify multiple pages
2. If the email appears suspended, see this article: Causes for ticket suspension
3. Recover any ticket of your choice

If you recover an email, this action informs the spam filter that the email is legitimate. This action is similar to the function of the Not Spam or Not junk button in your email. A few recovery attempts are necessary, as the system is self-learning and will allow emails over time.

If your end user does not have an email provider with properly configured SPF, DKIM, or DMARC settings, the enhanced sender authentication setting may also flag their emails as spam.

Other reasons may cause issues with email delivery. For further troubleshooting steps, see these articles:

• Customer emails don't show up in Zendesk
• Common email channel problems
• What does "Detected as Spam" mean