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Using custom email servers to send and receive support emails

Posted by Nishi on 16 December 2022

In addition to setting up your support mailbox via email forwarding, you can also choose to use your own email servers for sending and receiving emails through Freshdesk. This functionality lets you make sure that all your email transactions are outside Freshdesk, and will be completely managed at your end.

You can use your custom mail server only for incoming or outgoing or both. Besides that, you can choose to configure with public servers like Gmail or your private servers.

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

Steps to Set up the custom mail server

Log in to your Freshdesk account as an administrator.
Go to the Admin tab.
Click on the Email icon.
Click on the Edit button next to the mailbox for which you want to use a custom server or you can create a new mailbox by clicking on the New support email button.
In the Email settings page, enter the custom email address of the mailbox you want to use in the 'Your support email' text box.
Click on the Use your own mail server radio button.
Select the Email system to which your server belongs.
You can use your mail server for both incoming and outgoing emails or just outgoing emails.

Using Gmail Server

If you are using Gmail or AOL, the port and server details would already be pre-filled. You just have to enter your credentials and click on Save. If you have enabled MFA and have blocked less secure apps, please refer to these troubleshooting steps when you get an error while saving the settings.

Using Microsoft Office 365

If you are setting up the Microsoft OAuth for the first time, go to Admin > Email > New support email > Use your own mail server.

1. You can choose to use the mail server for ‘Incoming only’, ‘Outgoing Only’ or ‘Both’.

2. For ‘Incoming only’ and ‘Both’, you will be able to delete emails from the server after fetching them to Freshdesk.

3. Authenticate OAuth2.0 using your Microsoft credentials. Once the authentication is successful, you will see a confirmation message.

Note: If you are using an 'Other' or 'Gmail' server and if you wish to switch to Microsoft 365, you canClick on it and use the 'Sign in with Microsoft option to authenticate your server.

When you are authenticating, ensure that you are logged in to your support mailbox or try doing this in an incognito tab. Because, if you are logged in to your personal outlook account with SSO, clicking on the button would directly authenticate using your personal credentials and an error would be thrown.

Click on Save once you are signed in to save the mailbox settings.

Using other Servers

If you are using your own servers, you can choose the option 'Other' and follow the steps below:

1. Setting up Incoming

Enter the IMAP server name from where the incoming mails have to be fetched and port details.
Click on the 'Use SSL' check box for establishing a secure connection
Choose your Authentication based on your server settings
Enter your user name and password
Click on Save to start using your email server.

2. Setting up Outgoing

Enter the SMTP server name using which the outgoing emails should be sent and port details
Click on the 'Use SSL' check box for establishing a secure connection
Choose your Authentication based on your server settings
Enter your user name and password
Click on Save to start using your email server.

Please note that the authentication method varies for different email servers. For example, Gmail uses plain or CRAM-MD5 authentication. Choosing the wrong authentication method will lead to an error while saving.

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