Channels: Getting Started

Connect your support email end to end. By the end, customer mail will flow into LittleDesk and your replies will go out from your own domain. Takes about 15 minutes, plus DNS propagation time.

Before you start

• You're signed in as an admin.
• You can reach your existing support inbox to set up forwarding.
• You can add DNS records for your sending domain.

Steps

1. Open the Email channel. Go to Settings > Channels and click Email. This page holds your LittleDesk addresses and your sending domain.
2. Choose forwarding. Under How should LittleDesk receive email?, click Forward emails. The other option, Connect your email account, reads new mail straight from your account instead, with no forwarding to set up.
3. Copy your LittleDesk address. Under Your addresses, click the copy button next to your address. It looks like support@{slug}.littledesk.io. Use the copy button rather than typing the address yourself. To add another address, such as sales, click Add address.
4. Forward your mail in. In your email provider's settings, set your existing support inbox to forward to the address you just copied.
5. Add your sending domain. Under Sending domain, click Add custom domain. Type the domain you want replies to come from in Custom domain, for example acme.com, and click Add. Replies send from support@acme.com by default. You can change the part before the @ under Sender address.
6. Publish your DNS records. The domain shows the records to add at your domain provider: an ownership record, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. All four are TXT records. No MX record is needed, because LittleDesk never receives mail for your domain.
7. Verify your domain. Once the records are live, click Verify next to the domain. The DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records each show an OK or Not found badge once they've been checked. The domain's status reads verified when the ownership record, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC all pass.

ℹ️ Note: DNS changes can take up to 48 hours. If verification fails at first, wait and click Verify again.

If the ownership record and DKIM pass but SPF or DMARC doesn't, the status reads unhealthy. Replies already send from your domain in that state. Fix the failing record and click Verify again.

You're done

Customer mail forwards into LittleDesk as tickets, and your replies send from your own domain. Until your domain is set up, replies send from your {slug}.littledesk.io address.

If one of your DNS records breaks later, the domain's status changes to unhealthy and the Email page shows a warning. Replies keep sending from your domain while you fix it. If a reply can't be sent from your domain, it shows in the ticket as not sent, with the reason. LittleDesk doesn't send it from a different address instead.

Next steps

• Set up email forwarding
• Channels how-to guides