Set up a Helpdesk inbox

An inbox is an address your customers write to. A team admin adds one from Helpdesk → Inboxes with Add inbox, by giving it a name such as "Acme Support". Magpie makes its Magpie address from the name, and the inbox's page opens.

Forward your support address

Copy the inbox's Magpie address and set your support address to forward to it at your email provider:

• Gmail: in Settings, Forwarding and POP/IMAP, add the Magpie address as a forwarding address. Gmail sends a confirmation message, which arrives in Helpdesk as a conversation; open its link to confirm.
• Google Workspace: an administrator can forward a group or a user in the Admin console, under Routing, or the user can forward as in Gmail.
• Outlook and Microsoft 365: in Settings, Mail → Forwarding, turn forwarding on and enter the Magpie address.
• Other providers: look for forwarding, or an alias that delivers to another address.

The first message that arrives marks Send mail here done in the inbox's Get started list.

Reply from your own address

Replies go from the Magpie address until you connect a mailbox. To reply from support@acme.example itself, verify your domain in Mail, make a shared mailbox for the address there, and choose it in the inbox's Connected mailbox. Replies then go from that address and are kept in its Sent folder. Mail that arrives in the mailbox also comes to Helpdesk. A mailbox connects to one inbox. If the mailbox is suspended or removed in Mail, the inbox's page says it is no longer connected, and replies go from the Magpie address until you choose another.

The inbox's other settings

• Contact page: a page on Magpie where people can write to the inbox. See The Helpdesk contact page and the customer's conversation page.
• Acknowledgement: an email a customer gets when their message arrives, off until you turn it on. It goes at most once a day to each customer, never to an automatic message, and always to a message from the contact page. Leave its text empty to send "Thanks for your message. We will reply by email."
• Signature: added under every reply from the inbox.
• Storage: the files the inbox keeps, up to 5 GB. When it is full, new files are named in their messages but not kept; emptying Trash frees the space.
• Follow this inbox: emails you about every new conversation in it.

Archive an inbox

Archive inbox, in the inbox's More menu, stops it: mail to its Magpie address is refused, so the sender's provider tells them it was not delivered, and its contact page stops working. Its conversations stay readable. Restore inbox starts it again.

If mail does not arrive after you set up forwarding, Contact support.