Support  ·  Email

Connect another mail service

Any mailbox with IMAP and SMTP, like a web host's email, Fastmail, or Zoho.

Any mail service that offers IMAP and SMTP works: a web host’s email, Fastmail, Zoho, and so on. Gmail and Google Workspace work this way too, with an app password (see below), though Connect a Google Workspace mailbox is the better choice when you can set it up. Microsoft 365 doesn’t take passwords from servers anymore, so use Connect a Microsoft 365 mailbox for it.

Steps

1. Make a mailbox for the helpdesk. If the service offers app passwords, make one for the helpdesk and use it instead of the real password.
2. Find the server names and ports in the service’s help pages. The usual ports are 993 for IMAP and 465 or 587 for SMTP. The helpdesk always encrypts the connection and won’t sign in over one that isn’t.
3. Find your mail server’s name for the sender check. Open an email from a coworker in that mailbox, show the full headers, and copy the name right after Authentication-Results: in the top one (something like mx.example.net). The helpdesk believes that server’s DMARC result and no other.
4. Under Settings, System, Mailbox connection, choose Another mail service and fill it in. Save, then Test the connection and Send me a test email.

The password is stored encrypted and never shown again. Leave the box blank to keep the saved one.

Gmail or Google Workspace with an app password

1. Sign in to Google as the helpdesk’s mailbox. Turn on 2-Step Verification under Security if it isn’t on already. App passwords need it.
2. Go to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords, name it “Helpdesk,” and copy the 16-letter password it shows. If the page says app passwords aren’t available, 2-Step Verification is off, or your Google Workspace admin doesn’t allow them.
3. Fill in the mailbox connection with: – IMAP server imap.gmail.com, port 993 – SMTP server smtp.gmail.com, port 465 – Username: the full email address – Password: the app password, not the account’s real password – Mail server name for the sender check: mx.google.com

If the mailbox’s password is changed later, Google cancels its app passwords, so make a new one and save it here.

If coworkers’ mail is skipped

When the log under Settings, Email says a coworker’s email “may be spoofed,” the sender check didn’t pass. Look at that email’s headers for its SPF, DKIM, and DMARC results, and fix whichever failed, usually by turning on DKIM signing for your domain with your mail service. Trust the From address is a last resort, since anyone outside could then pretend to be someone in your organization.