Handle your email in the same place as your chats
Email piping syncs a mailbox with Vera.Support. Emails arrive as conversations, and both your agents and your customers can carry on the thread by email.
This is for you if customers still write to a support address and you would rather not watch two inboxes. It suits any business where email and chat are answered by the same small team.
Step by step
Connect your mailbox
Go to Settings > Notifications > Email piping and enter your POP3/IMAP server details. The IMAP module must be available on the mail side, so check that with whoever runs your mail server if the connection fails.
Point SMTP at the same address
Open Settings > Notifications > SMTP and set the sending address to the same address the piping server connects to. All mail goes out from that address and everyone replies to it, so a mismatch breaks the loop.
Choose what becomes a conversation
Convert all emails turns every message reaching that inbox into a chat message. Use Filters to keep unwanted mail out: enter comma-separated keywords, and any email whose body, subject or sender contains one is not converted.
Sort out reply addresses for your team
Agents and admins cannot use the piping address to reply. Each of them needs a different address, and it must be the address registered on their profile, otherwise their reply will not be matched to the conversation.
Send a test from an outside address
Emails from your own agents and admins are ignored, so a test from your own account will look like nothing happened. Write in from an unrelated address and watch the conversation appear.
Settings reference
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Email piping | Holds the POP3/IMAP details of the mailbox you want turned into conversations. |
| SMTP | Sets the address all mail is sent from, which must match the address piping connects to. |
| Convert all emails | Converts every email reaching the inbox into a chat message rather than only replies to existing threads. |
| Filters | Comma-separated keywords that stop an email being converted when they appear in its body, subject or sender. |
| Delimiter | Adds the line ### Please type your reply above this line ### to your emails and cuts away everything quoted below it. |
| User email notifications | Emails your customer when an agent replies in the panel; switched on automatically with piping. |
| Agent email notifications | Emails your agents about new messages; switched on automatically with piping. |
Good to know
Agents are only emailed when offline
If an agent is signed in to the panel, no notification email goes out to them. Replies from the panel always reach the customer by email, whatever the agent's status.
Convert all emails means everything
Spam and promotional mail sent to that inbox become chat messages too, and every email written directly to the piping address opens a new conversation rather than joining an existing one. Filters are your defence here.
The chatbot can keep emails from being sent
With AI human takeover on, no emails are sent while the chatbot knows the answer. That is deliberate, but it surprises people who expect a notification for every message.
Quoted replies and stray text
Turn on Delimiter if you see duplicated messages, as it removes the quoted history below the line. While it is on, ### cannot be used in emails. Some mail clients add their own delimiters and strings, so a converted message may contain odd leftovers; Outlook Web, Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo Mail are optimised.
Replies need the recipient's name
The reply must carry the recipient name alongside the address, for example Vera.Support | SB2457-4734 <[email protected]>. Every major client does this by default.
Departments and reply-to
When a conversation belongs to a department, only that department's agents are notified. If an incoming email carries a reply-to address, that address becomes the customer's primary email for notifications.
Common questions
Can my agents reply from the support address itself?
How do I connect a Gmail or Google Workspace mailbox?
Do attachments come through?
Why do messages appear twice?
Why did nothing happen when I emailed the address from my own account?
Do I need to switch email notifications on separately?
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