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In addition to the default Freshworks mail server, you can add your emails configured on public email servers like Gmail and Microsoft Office 365 or your own custom email server and bring them to Freshdesk to manage your email transactions. Any emails received on your configured email will be automatically converted as tickets in Freshdesk.

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Email Setup combinations

Freshdesk provides the flexibility to choose and decide the email setup flow. The options are:

• Incoming Only: Allows you to configure and manage emails specifically for handling incoming email transactions. You can select from popular email services such as Gmail, Microsoft Office 365, and Custom servers (your own mail server).

  
  

  If you use a non-public domain email (e.g., help@acme.com), Freshworks will automatically assign its own mail server for outgoing emails. This means you can use the default Freshworks email as the reply address to respond to emails.  

  
  

  If you use a public domain email (e.g., help@gmail.com), the default outgoing email server will be the same as the one managing your incoming emails (e.g., Gmail in this case). However, you can later update the settings to switch to a different server for outgoing emails if needed.
  
  

• Outgoing only: Allows you to add and manage emails only for outgoing email transactions. Again, you can choose from Gmail, Microsoft Office 365, Custom servers

  
  

  For this setup, the Freshworks mail server will be used to handle all incoming emails, while your outgoing emails will be sent via the server you select. This is useful if you want control over outgoing email communications but prefer to use Freshworks for managing inbound messages.

• Incoming and outgoing: Allows you to add and manage emails for both incoming and outgoing email transactions.

Note: When you set up a custom mailbox, the last day's emails in the mailbox (both read and unread emails) from the Inbox will be fetched and created as tickets in Freshdesk.

Use Gmail to set up emails in Freshdesk

You can bring your existing Gmail or add a new email on the Google Email server to manage incoming, outgoing, or both incoming and outgoing email transactions.

1. Log in as an administrator.
2. Go to Admin > Channels > Support Email > New Support Email.
3. Choose the email setup combination (see above for more details).

4. Select Gmail, log in with your Gmail credentials, and ensure to authorize (read/write/delete) access to Freshdesk.
   

5. Once the permissions are granted, your Gmail will be successfully added to Freshdesk.
   Note: For successful SMTP authentication, ensure that you enable and allow Freshdesk to access (read, compose, send, and delete) your emails. If you continue to sign up without enabling this permission, you may see the following error:
   
6. You can view the email on the Email list page and edit it again to modify the details or change the server used for incoming or outgoing transactions.
   

Using Microsoft Office 365 to set up emails in Freshdesk

Bring your existing email or add a new email using Microsoft Office 365 to manage incoming, outgoing, or both incoming and outgoing email transactions.

1. Log in as an administrator.
2. Go to Admin > Channels > Support Email > New Support Email.
3. Choose the email setup combination (see above for more details).

4. Select Microsoft Office 365, log in with your credentials, and authorize (read/write/delete) access to Freshdesk.

5. Once permission is granted, your Microsoft email will be successfully added to Freshdesk. 
6. You can view the email on the Email list page and edit it again to modify the details or change the server used for incoming or outgoing transactions.

Note: If you are logged in to your personal Outlook or Gmail account with SSO and use the Sign In option, the authentication will be done on your personal credentials. To avoid this, ensure to complete the authentication in an incognito/guest browser.

Use other custom mail servers

In addition to Gmail and Microsoft Office, you can choose other custom servers to manage your email transactions, incoming, outgoing, or both.

To add a support email via a custom Email server:

1. Log in as an administrator.
2. Go to Admin > Channels > Support Email > New Support Email > Custom.
   
3. Enter the Support Email name.
4. Proceed with the following sections to configure settings for Incoming and Outgoing server details.

Configure incoming and outgoing server details

Enter the following details:

1. Incoming Email Server: Enter the IMAP server name from where the incoming mails have to be fetched. 
2. IMAP Port: Enter the port details. For details on ports used on different email servers, see the section SSL and port details.
3. Use SSL: To establish a secure connection, ensure that you select the Use SSL option.
4. Login details: 
   • Choose the Authentication method based on your server settings. The options are Plain, Login, CRAM-MD5.
     Note: The authentication method varies for different email servers. For example, Gmail uses plain or CRAM-MD5 authentication. Ensure that you choose the correct authentication method.
   • Enter the username and password of your email account.
     Note: If you want to use a custom mail server for both your incoming and outgoing emails, fill in the details for both incoming and outgoing email server settings.

Note: If you want to use the custom mail server for both your incoming and outgoing emails, fill in the details for both incoming and outgoing email server settings.

SSL and port details

How does SSL secure your mail server?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) enhances security by encrypting the data exchanged between a client (such as a browser or email client) and a server. This encryption ensures that sensitive information, such as login credentials, emails, and personal data, is protected from interception by unauthorized parties.

By converting plain text into encrypted ciphertext, SSL prevents attackers from accessing or tampering with the information during transmission. Additionally, SSL provides server authentication, which verifies the identity of the server you are communicating with. 

This helps prevent impersonation attacks, such as man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, where an attacker pretends to be the intended server to steal data. Together, these features ensure data confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity, creating a secure channel for communication and building trust between users and servers.

How to find port details?

The following table provides the list of SMTP and IMAP settings for a few common email providers. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list and if you don't find the required information, check with your email provider.

Tips and best practices

• You can configure advanced email settings to customize your emails. For example, you can allow your agents to send outbound emails to customers. For details, check Configuring Advanced Email Settings.
• If the password for the support email account is modified, re-authenticate using the updated password within Freshdesk. Failure to do so will result in emails not being converted into tickets.
• If you’re unsure about the setup, check with your email service provider or IT administrator. 
• If you use Microsoft Office 365 mail authentication, note that the default lifetime for the refresh tokens is 24 hours for single-page apps and 90 days for all other scenarios. You may have to reauthenticate your tokens every 90 days. However, if you own the email exchange authentication, you can modify this policy.