Email to ticket is off by default. Open Settings, Email, and under Turn emails into tickets set Read my support mailbox to Yes, check it every 5 minutes. Then fill in the mailbox details. One click on Gmail / Google Workspace, Outlook / Microsoft 365, Yahoo or My web host (cPanel) fills in the server and port for you.
What you need:
- The PHP IMAP extension on your host. If it is missing, the Email tab shows a warning and polling simply does nothing. Forms, the REST route and the sales integrations all keep working without it.
- Mail server, port, email address and password. Gmail and Outlook need an app password, not your normal password.
- A folder, INBOX by default, and the SSL toggle.
How polling works:
- Every five minutes the background job opens the mailbox and searches for unseen messages.
- Each message is parsed for the sender, the subject and the body. Plain text is preferred, HTML is stripped as a fallback, and common quoted reply markers are trimmed off the bottom.
- If the subject carries a ticket reference in square brackets, such as [1042], the message is appended to that ticket and the ticket is reopened. Tickets from before references were numbers carry a code like [T-ABC12345], and those still match. A number in brackets only counts when the person writing is the customer on that ticket, or one of the other addresses linked to them on their contact page, because a bare number could be anything. If none of that fits, a new ticket is created on the email channel.
- The message is then flagged as seen so it is not processed twice.
Duplicate protection:
Every stored message keeps the original email Message-ID. If a message with the same id is already on file, it is skipped, so a re-delivered email cannot create a second ticket.
Outbound replies:
Replies are sent from the name and address you set in Settings, General, through your site's normal mail or your own sending service (see Your Emails: Sending Service, Branding And Alerts). The subject is prefixed with the ticket reference and Re:, and each mail carries a footer reminding the customer that replying continues the conversation. That prefix is exactly what the poller reads to thread the answer back onto the right ticket, so leave it in place.
Reading a customer's earlier emails:
The same mailbox details power the Email history card on every ticket, and they do so even when email to ticket is switched off. See Reading A Customer's Email History From Your Mailbox.