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Google sends a confirmation code before it will forward anything, and that code arrives in Zendesk rather than in your inbox. It is usually sitting in Suspended tickets, which is where most Gmail setups stall.
Set it up
- Take the Zendesk support address you want mail forwarded to.
- In Gmail, open the forwarding settings and add that address as a forwarding address.
- Google sends a confirmation code to it. Find the resulting ticket in Zendesk and open it for the code or the link.
- Confirm in Gmail, then switch forwarding on for all incoming mail and choose to archive or delete Gmail's copy.
- Back in Zendesk, enter your existing support email address in Enter forwarding address and click Save.
- Click the options menu next to that support address and choose Verify forwarding. Zendesk sends a test message to check the route works.
Step six is the part people skip, and it is the only confirmation that the whole path works rather than just the Gmail half.
Where the confirmation code is
In your suspended tickets. Verification mail often arrives from a no-reply address, so Zendesk suspends it with the cause Detected email as being from a system user.
Look there before concluding that Google never sent it. Searching your own mailbox will not find it, because it was never delivered there.
Do not keep a copy in Gmail
Gmail offers to leave a copy in the inbox. Choose archive or delete instead. A copy means somebody will eventually answer from Gmail, and that reply is invisible to Zendesk: the customer gets an answer, the ticket stays open, and nobody can see what was said.
A shared mailbox or a group address
Google Groups forward differently from a normal mailbox, and a group used as a support address needs its own settings for external posting and for who may send to it. Where forwarding appears to be set correctly and nothing arrives, that is usually the cause.
Check this before you build on it: Zendesk does not support Google Groups, aliases or shared mailboxes as a support address, so a dedicated forwarding address is the safer arrangement.
Check whether authentication is on
Zendesk can check authentication on incoming mail, and forwarding from Gmail fails that check: forwarding breaks the original sender's SPF result. If your account already has that check on, it applies to this route today. If it is off, Zendesk begins switching it on from 23 September 2026, at the Minimal level.
Either way a route you set up today can start suspending messages without anything on your side having changed, so look at your suspended tickets and tell us if legitimate mail starts landing there.
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