Gmail support setup and sending health

Connect a Gmail mailbox and ChatDrift turns incoming mail into tickets. Agents reply from the ticket, and the reply is sent through Gmail from a verified address. This page covers the setup, the reply composer and how to keep replies out of Spam.

Connect a Gmail mailbox

1. Open Integrations and find Gmail in the Support Desk group.
2. Select Connect Gmail. A Google window opens. Choose the mailbox and allow access. The window closes when the connection is saved.
3. The setup dialog opens. Until you finish it, the mailbox shows Setup required on the card and does not create tickets. Select Finish setup to reopen it at any time.

You can connect more than one mailbox. Select Connect another account on the Gmail card.

The three setup steps

1. Receiving addresses. Only mail addressed to the addresses you tick, or list in the text box, becomes a ticket. Include forwarded addresses such as support@yourcompany.com, as long as they deliver into this Gmail mailbox.
2. Reply address. Choose the default From address. It must be one that Gmail has verified under Settings > Accounts > Send mail as. When a ticket was sent to an address that is also a verified sender, the reply uses that address. Otherwise it uses your default.
3. Confirm. Review the mailbox, receiving addresses and default From. New mail starts syncing once you confirm.

To change these later, select the settings icon on the Gmail card.

Import older emails

After you confirm, ChatDrift offers to import recent emails. Pick which messages from the last 30 days should become tickets, up to 500 conversations at a time. Select the download icon on the Gmail card to import again. New mail keeps creating tickets automatically either way, and a conversation that is already a ticket is not imported twice.

Disconnect

Select Disconnect on the Gmail card. New email stops creating tickets and replies from that mailbox stop working. Existing tickets stay readable.

Reply from a Gmail ticket

Open a Gmail ticket and select Reply. The composer shows:

• From. The verified addresses of every connected mailbox, grouped by mailbox. The ticket's own address is the default. A mailbox that could not be read is listed as needing a reconnect and cannot send. Add Gmail account connects another mailbox without leaving the ticket.

• To, Cc and Bcc. To starts as the person who wrote in. Select Cc or Bcc to add copy recipients. Separate several addresses with commas. An entry that is not an email address is flagged instead of being dropped, so a typo never loses a recipient.

• Attach files. The paperclip adds files to the reply. See Gmail attachments.

Messages you receive show their To and Cc lines in the conversation, and the files that came with them. See Gmail attachments for opening files and inline images.

Replies you send from Gmail itself, on a conversation that is already a ticket, also appear on the ticket as sent replies. They arrive the next time ChatDrift syncs the mailbox, which is usually within a few minutes and at most about 90 minutes. They do not reopen the ticket, and mail you send that does not belong to an existing ticket is ignored. Replies sent before this was added are not imported.

Step through tickets

On a ticket, use the arrow buttons next to the title, or the keyboard, to move through the list you came from. The filters you had on the list (status, priority, platform, search and dates) stay in effect.

The keys do nothing while you are typing, in a menu or in a dialog.

Gmail sending health

When you reply to a ticket from a Gmail connection, ChatDrift sends the message through Gmail. If you reply from a custom-domain address, such as hello@yourcompany.com, that address is a Send mail as alias on your Gmail account. The message is sent by Google's servers, but it says it comes from your domain.

Inboxes check whether the domain's owner allows that. If your domain's DNS does not say so, the reply can land in the customer's Spam folder, even though Gmail reports it as sent. The Sending health section on the Gmail card in Integrations shows what is missing and the exact DNS record to add.

Replies from a plain gmail.com address always pass, because Google signs and authorises them itself. Those addresses are not checked.

Why replies land in Spam

Three DNS records let a receiving inbox trust mail from your domain.

A typical problem looks like this: the domain's SPF record only lists the registrar's mail servers, so mail sent by Google fails SPF. There is no DKIM key and no DMARC record, so nothing else vouches for the message. Inboxes treat that mail as suspicious.

SPF

Add Google to your domain's SPF record. SPF lives in a TXT record on the root of your domain (the host is @, or the domain name, depending on your provider).

1. Look at the existing record. It starts with v=spf1.
2. Add include:_spf.google.com before the final ~all or -all. For example, change v=spf1 include:_spf.porkbun.com ~all to v=spf1 include:_spf.porkbun.com include:_spf.google.com ~all.
3. Save the record.

A domain must have only one SPF record. Two records starting with v=spf1 make SPF fail for every message. If you have two, merge them into one. The Sending health panel shows the merged record for you to paste in.

If the alias is set up in Gmail with its own SMTP server (see below), the SPF record has to authorise that provider instead. The panel then only checks that an SPF record exists.

DKIM

DKIM signing for a custom domain needs Google Workspace. A free gmail.com account cannot sign mail for another domain. You have two options.

Option 1: use Google Workspace for the domain.

1. In the Google Admin console, open Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > Authenticate email.
2. Choose the domain and select Generate new record. Keep the default selector, google.
3. Add the TXT record Google shows at google._domainkey.yourcompany.com.
4. Back in the Admin console, select Start authentication.

Option 2: send the alias through your domain provider's SMTP server.

In Gmail, open Settings > Accounts > Send mail as, edit the alias and choose to send through your provider's SMTP server (for example smtp.porkbun.com) with your mailbox credentials. Mail is then sent and signed by your domain provider instead of Google. Make sure your SPF record authorises that provider.

If you do neither, the panel shows a warning for DKIM. Replies can still arrive in the inbox when SPF and DMARC are set up, but DKIM is the strongest signal.

DMARC

DMARC is a TXT record at _dmarc.yourcompany.com. Start in monitoring mode, then tighten it once your reports look clean.

1. Add a TXT record with host _dmarc and value v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:you@yourcompany.com. Use an address you read. Inboxes send daily summary reports there.
2. Leave it for a week or two. Check that your own mail passes SPF and DKIM.
3. Change p=none to p=quarantine. Later you can move to p=reject.

With p=none the panel shows a warning labelled "monitoring only", because the policy does not yet protect your domain.

If you send from a subdomain such as mail.yourcompany.com and it has no DMARC record of its own, the panel uses the record on the parent domain, the same way inboxes do.

Where to add the records

Every provider asks for a record type, a host (also called name) and a value. Add TXT records with the values from the Sending health panel.

Porkbun. Open Domain Management, then Details for the domain, then DNS Records. Select Add, choose type TXT, leave Host empty for the root record (SPF) or enter _dmarc or google._domainkey, paste the Answer, and save.

Cloudflare. Open the domain, then DNS > Records > Add record. Choose type TXT. Enter @ as the Name for the root record, or _dmarc or google._domainkey. Paste the value into Content and save. To change an existing SPF record, edit it instead of adding a second one.

GoDaddy. Open My Products, then DNS next to the domain. Select Add New Record, choose type TXT, enter @ as the Name for the root record, or _dmarc or google._domainkey, paste the Value and save. To change an existing SPF record, edit it.

Some providers append your domain to the host automatically. If so, enter _dmarc, not _dmarc.yourcompany.com. DNS changes can take from a few minutes to a few hours to be visible.

Test your setup

After you change DNS, use Re-check in the Sending health panel, then confirm with a real message.

1. Send yourself a test reply from a ticket, to a Gmail address you control.
2. Open the message in Gmail, select the three dots, then Show original.
3. At the top, look for SPF: PASS, DKIM: PASS and DMARC: PASS. DKIM can read NEUTRAL or FAIL until you set it up as described above.
4. For a broader check, send a message to the address shown at mail-tester.com. It scores the message and explains any issues.

What the Sending health panel checks

The panel appears on each connected Gmail mailbox. It checks the reply-from address and every other Send mail as alias on the account, grouped by address.

Each result shows a label in text (Pass, Warning, Fail or Unknown), what was found in DNS and a one-line explanation. For warnings and failures it shows the exact record to add, with a copy button. Unknown means a DNS lookup timed out or could not be completed. Use Re-check to try again.

When any address fails, the Gmail card shows Replies may go to Spam in its header. When the worst result is a warning it shows Check sending setup. When everything passes, the badge is hidden.

The check reads public DNS records only. It does not send email, and it does not change anything on your domain or in Gmail.