Email inboxes and forwarding

Customer email reaches the Help Desk in one of two ways: connect a Gmail inbox directly, or forward any mailbox to an address Records Labs gives you. Both land in the same inbox queue. A forwarded inbox brings in every email; a connected Gmail inbox brings mail in while its AI answering is on.

Add an email channel

Open Help Desk, then the Channels tab. Click Add a channel (admins only).
Pick Email, then Set up email.
Choose a path:
- Connect the mailbox: Connect Gmail or Connect Outlook. The provider asks for permission so the AI can reply.
- Forward mail from any provider: Forward an inbox.

Gmail inboxes and AI answering

A connected Gmail inbox has an AI answering mode:

Off: the AI does not answer this inbox.
Draft for review: the AI drafts a reply in Gmail; a person approves and sends.
Auto-send: the AI sends automatically when it clears the guardrails, otherwise it drafts for a person.

Off is the default. Draft mode needs Gmail's compose permission and Auto-send its send permission; the editor prompts you to reconnect Gmail if one is missing. While answering is Off, mail to the inbox stays in Gmail and does not become Help Desk conversations. If you want every email in the queue, forward the mailbox instead.

The inbox's channel editor has three steps:

Answering: the Answering agent, Knowledge sensitivity ceiling, Knowledge audience (Public knowledge only or Include internal knowledge), a Reply signature, Max replies per thread (1 to 50, default 6), and Answer when this inbox is only CC'd.
Auto-send rules: Minimum confidence to auto-send (40 to 95, default 75), Only auto-send these topics, and When a guardrail blocks a send, route to.
Routing: the Routing team that receives the conversations.

Every AI reply or draft ends with "This reply was drafted by an AI assistant." followed by your signature. A reply with no grounded sources, or one the policy check declined, is never sent or drafted; it is left for a person.

You can connect an Outlook inbox, but AI answering is Gmail-only for now, so a connected Outlook inbox does not bring mail into the Help Desk yet. For a Microsoft 365 mailbox, use the forwarding address below.

Forwarding any mailbox

Forwarding works with every provider and needs no mailbox permissions. You can have up to 10 forwarded inboxes.

Click Forward an inbox. In Forward an Inbox, give the mailbox an Inbox name (for example "Support") and optionally the Address you'll forward from. Click Create address.
Records Labs mints a permanent address in the form t-…@in.recordslabs.ai. Copy it. It never changes, even if you rename the organization.
Set up forwarding in your provider. The wizard has a tab for each:
- Gmail: Settings → See all settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP → Add a forwarding address. Paste the address, open Google's confirmation email (it arrives as a conversation in your Help Desk inbox) and click the link, then turn on Forward a copy of incoming mail.
- Microsoft 365: in Outlook on the web, Settings → Mail → Rules. Apply to all messages and choose Redirect to the address. Redirect, not forward, keeps the customer as the sender.
- Zoho: Settings → Mail Accounts → Forwarding. Add the address and confirm the verification email, which appears as a conversation in your Help Desk inbox.
- Other: point the mailbox's forwarding at the address. If the provider verifies the destination first, that email shows up as a conversation.
The first email that arrives verifies the connection. The wizard shows "Waiting for the first email…" and then "Verified — mail is flowing." Send any test email to check the pipe.

Open a forwarded inbox from Help Desk → Channels to set its Routing team. In Settings → Channels (under Help Desk), the Email Forwarding card lists each forwarded inbox with a routing team picker and a row menu with Setup instructions, Reply signature and Deactivate address. Deactivating drops mail to that address; existing conversations stay, but replies on them stop sending.

AI answering is not available on forwarded inboxes yet. Every forwarded email becomes a conversation with a ticket for your team to answer.

How an email becomes a conversation

A new email creates a conversation titled with its subject (or "Email from {sender}") and a ticket.
Replies thread onto the existing conversation by reply headers, a [#N] ticket number in the subject from someone already on the thread, or the same subject from the same sender within 30 days.
People on CC are kept as ticket CCs. Up to 5 attachments of 10 MB each come through.

Replying from the Help Desk

Reply from the conversation in the Help Desk inbox. On a connected Gmail inbox, the reply goes out from that Gmail address. On a forwarded inbox, it goes out from your verified sending domain when you have one (otherwise the platform sender), with the forwarding address as reply-to so the customer's answer comes straight back to the queue. Forwarded-inbox replies are plain text, keep the thread, include ticket CCs, add the inbox signature, and carry no attachments.

A forwarded inbox can also let customers answer widget and Help Center tickets by email. This is off until an admin turns it on: in the Help Desk, open Ticket Settings → Notifications, pick a verified forwarded inbox under Reply Inbox, and save. Only verified, active inboxes are listed.

With a reply inbox picked, ticket status emails on Help Center tickets use that inbox's address as reply-to. Widget tickets also need Email replies to offline visitors on (Settings → Help Desk → Channels); then their status emails, and your replies emailed to visitors who left the page, use it too. A customer who replies to one of those emails lands on the same ticket. Only the ticket's own customer joins it this way: a reply from any other address, for example someone the email was forwarded to, starts its own email conversation instead. Status emails tell the customer how to answer: "Reply to this email", "Reply from the Help Center portal", or both, matching what works for that ticket.

An emailed answer joins the chat or Help Center conversation. It does not turn it into an email thread: your next reply goes out the way that conversation normally does, and the customer's CCs are not added to the ticket.

If the reply inbox stops being verified or active, or is deleted, replying by email turns off and Reply Inbox shows it as unavailable. Pick another inbox or choose Off.

Loop and CC safeguards

Automated mail (no-reply and bounce senders, auto-replies, mailing lists, bulk mail) never becomes a conversation or gets answered.
Forwarded mail from your own verified sending domains is dropped, so internal threads do not become tickets.
The Gmail AI stays quiet when the inbox is only CC'd unless you turn that on, stops after the per-thread reply cap, skips threads a person already answered, ignores Spam and Trash, and leaves mail that arrived before you turned it on alone.
On a Gmail inbox, likely cold sales emails are never answered (they are tagged for a person), and senders you blocked in the Help Desk are dropped.
If a customer asks for a person, an Auto-send inbox tells them a team member will follow up; a Draft inbox leaves the thread for a person.