Allowing Zendesk to send email on behalf of your email domain


If you want to use your own email address to receive support requests, and you'veadded your email address as a support addressin Zendesk, then you can set up your custom email domain to verify that Zendesk can send email on behalf of your email server.


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If you want to use your own email address to receive support requests, and you've
added your email address as a support
address in Zendesk, then you can set up your custom email
domain to verify that Zendesk can send email on behalf of your email
server.
For example, if you receive email from your customers at help@acme.com,
and you've set up an automatic redirect to forward all email received there
to Support, you can authorize Zendesk to send out notifications as if it
originated from your own email address (for example: help@acme.com).
That way you can preserve your branding throughout the entire process.
You don’t have to configure your email domain this way, but it’s recommended if
you use your own custom email domain and have set up forwarding to an external
email address. If you use a non-custom domain, such as
addresses ending in @gmail.com or @yahoo.com, you can't use this feature, as
you won't have access to the account DNS settings.


Note: If you use the Zendesk Connector for Gmail to send emails, it's
recommended, but not required that you set up an SPF record to allow
Zendesk to send email on your behalf (see Enabling automatic ticket
creation for your Gmail inbox).

This article includes these topics:
The advantages of this configuration
Setting up records for your domain
Verifying your domain
Understanding SPF checks




The advantages of this configuration


Note: To use this configuration, you must add your email address as a
support address in Zendesk before proceeding.

So, do you have to allow Zendesk to send email on behalf of your email
domain? The short answer is: No. The slightly longer answer
is: Only if you really don't want your customers to see
the Zendesk name on their messages.
When Zendesk sends an email message using your email address (which is
what happens if you've set up a support address with
forwarding) the message identifies the sender as
zendesk.com to avoid getting rejected. However, if
you allow Zendesk to send email on behalf of your email domain,
Zendesk stops sending messages from zendesk.com, and sends
them from your domain, completely preserving your branding.
If you don't complete the tasks described in this article, your
customers might see something like this:

The following warning will also appear in the agent interface next to
your external support addresses:

However, if you complete the tasks described in this article, the
via statement and warning don’t appear.



Setting up records for your domain


Note: Setting up records for your domain can be confusing because it's
something most of us rarely do. Consult your system administrator,
if you have one, before proceeding.
The process of setting up an SPF record is different for different domain
registrars. For example, here are the instructions for GoDaddy, Namecheap, Network Solutions, and Google Domains.
To create or edit an SPF record to reference Zendesk

Edit your domain's DNS settings to add a TXT record. The steps
vary depending on your domain registrar. A TXT record is
required for your SPF record to be validated. Zendesk
attempts to verify this record when you add a support
address.

Zendesk recommends using the following SPF record:
v=spf1 include:mail.zendesk.com -all
Note the following:
If you use include:mail.zendesk.com,
then it must be in the first-layer lookup
SPF macros are supported

redirect: syntax is supported
Record flattening services will work, though this
practice may be less stable than
include:,
redirect:, or macro syntax.



Note: While the SPF mechanism you choose is up to your domain admin, we
recommend employing a hardfail SPF mechanism
(-all), which offers the greatest security against
email spoofing. An invalid SPF record can cause verification to
fail. Seek support from your domain provider, as Zendesk cannot help
you administer your DNS or security records and policies.
If you've already set up an SPF record for another purpose, add a
reference to Zendesk to it. The SPF specification requires that you
only have one SPF record on your domain. If you have multiple
records, it may cause issues, and cause rejections of your email.
For example, instead of having two separate records, such as
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com -all and
v=spf1 include:mail.zendesk.com -all,
combine them into one, like this:
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:mail.zendesk.com -all
In the past, Zendesk suggested alternate formulations for SPF records,
including include:smtp.zendesk.com and
include:support.zendesk.com. These are both
outdated SPF records. While they might still work, they're not the
best option. If you're still using them, you'll see a warning flag
indicating you've set up an outdated record.

Tip: Consider making an additional update to digitally sign
outbound email from Zendesk to prevent your customers' email clients
from blocking email. Digitally signing email proves that an email
actually came from your organization and not someone pretending to
be your organization. For instructions, see Digitally signing your email
with DKIM.



Verifying your domain

Zendesk auto-verifies this record when you add a support address.
It currently does not have a verification function but we may
require the value be added to your domain's DNS record in the
future.



Understanding SPF checks

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a domain level email authorization
protocol that allows you to declare which IP addresses are allowed
to send email as if it originated from your domain.
This is accomplished by adding Domain Name System
(DNS)
TXT record. Think of DNS as a publicly accessible record for the
internet. This record enables you to state publicly that Zendesk is
an authorized sender for your domain.
When an email client receives a message, it performs an SPF check on the
sending domain to verify that the email came from who it says it
did. If this check fails, or there isn't a DNS record that says that
Zendesk is a permitted sender, some receivers might consider that
email spam or a phishing attempt, and flag it as untrustworthy or
not display it to your customers at all.
Zendesk avoids this by sending email using our own domain when we're not
authorized to use your domain, and by using your domain only when
you authorize Zendesk with a proper SPF record. Generally, this
helps to prevent emails from your Zendesk account to your customers
from being incorrectly marked as spam. However, if you are having
this problem, see How can I stop my emails from
going into my customer's spam
folder?
If you're having trouble verifying your SPF record, see Why is my SPF record not
validating?


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