Email channel

The email channel puts your support email next to your chats. Someone writes to [email protected], it shows up in your inbox and in its own Telegram topic, you reply, and they get a normal email back.

Nothing changes about how you work. You answer emails the same way you answer widget chats.

How it works

You keep your existing mailbox. We don’t replace it, and you don’t move your email anywhere. You add a forwarding rule that sends a copy of incoming mail to a private address we make for your project.

1. A customer emails your support address.
2. Your mail provider forwards a copy to your Bubblegram address.
3. It lands in your inbox and in a new Telegram topic, attachments included.
4. You reply from either one.
5. They get an email reply, from your own address if you’ve set up your domain.
6. When they answer, it comes straight back to the same conversation. No forwarding involved.

Setup is two parts. Forwarding gets email flowing in, and it’s all most people need. Replying from your own domain is optional.

1. Turn on the email channel

Open your project, go to Channels → Email, and click Turn on email. You get a forwarding address that looks like this:

[email protected]

It’s unique to your project and can’t be guessed. Keep it private: anyone who knows it can send messages into your inbox. It stays the same if you turn the channel off and on again, so your forwarding rule keeps working.

2. Forward your support email

Set up forwarding to that address in whatever provider hosts your support inbox. The dashboard shows exact steps for your provider. Gmail is the one worth walking through here, because it takes two settings that look like one.

Gmail and Google Workspace

1. Open Gmail, click the gear icon, then See all settings.
2. Go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
3. Click Add a forwarding address, paste your Bubblegram address, then click Next, Proceed, OK.
4. Gmail emails us a confirmation link. It shows up in the dashboard within a few seconds: open it and click Confirm.
5. Go back to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab in Gmail settings, select Forward a copy of incoming mail to, then choose the address above from the dropdown next to it.
6. Scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes.

You never have to go hunting for Gmail’s confirmation email. It goes to an address only we can read, so we watch for it, pull out the link, and show it in the dashboard. If Telegram is connected, it’s posted there too.

Google Workspace accounts follow the same six steps. If step 3 fails outright, forwarding is probably disabled for your organization, or restricted to an allowlist of domains that yours needs to be added to.

Other providers

Outlook and Microsoft 365 forwarding is less reliable than the others. Microsoft often blocks forwarding to outside addresses by default, so if mail doesn’t arrive, check with whoever manages your account.

Confirming it works

Nothing arrives on its own. Once forwarding is saved, email your support address from a personal account. Within a few seconds it shows up in your inbox, and the dashboard switches to Receiving on its own. Forwarding only applies to mail that arrives after you saved, so anything already sitting in the inbox stays there.

3. Reply from your own domain

This step is optional. Skip it and everything still works. Replies just come from an address on our domain, named after your project, like Acme <[email protected]>. It unlocks once your first forwarded email arrives.

Under Custom domain on the Sending card, enter your domain and the address replies should come from, like [email protected]. We generate three DNS records for you to add at your registrar:

The dashboard checks every few seconds and marks each record as it goes green. Click Check now if you don’t want to wait. DNS changes usually take a few minutes, sometimes a few hours. You can close the tab and come back.

Until all three records verify, replies still go out from our address, so nothing is lost in the meantime.

What it looks like

In the inbox, emails are marked with the Email channel and show their subject. In Telegram, each sender gets their own topic, named with an envelope so you can tell it apart from widget chats:

📧 [email protected]

The first message in a new topic is preceded by a short info card:

From: [email protected]
Subject: Can't reset my password

Attachments come through as files or photos (see attachment limits). Quoted reply chains and signatures are stripped, so you see what the person actually wrote rather than the whole thread. If a message fails sender authentication, we flag it at the top rather than hiding it, since that’s a common sign of a spoofed address.

Replying

Reply from the inbox or the topic. A few details worth knowing:

• Several quick replies are bundled into one email rather than sent separately, so you can think out loud without filling someone’s inbox.
• Replies thread properly in the recipient’s client, under Re: their subject.
• When they reply, it comes straight back into the same conversation. It does not depend on your forwarding rule, and it works even if they answer from a different address than the one they wrote in with.
• If someone starts in the widget and continues by email, or the other way around, it stays in one conversation with the full history.
• Closing works the same as for widget chats. If they email again later, the conversation reopens.
• With the assistant on, emails get AI suggestions or automated replies too.

What we filter out

A support inbox receives a lot that isn’t a customer talking to you. Rather than pass all of it along, we quietly drop the following:

So a forwarded newsletter is not a useful way to test your setup. Send an ordinary email from a personal account instead.

Limits

• Around 15 emails per minute per project, in short bursts of up to 20.
• 5 emails per sender per 5 minutes, which stops one loop or one angry refresher from flooding the group.
• Up to 20 new conversations at once, then roughly 6 per minute after that.
• Message bodies are capped at 50,000 characters.

These are far above normal support volume. If you are hitting them, something is looping and we should look at it together.

Turning it off

Disable email channel, in the menu on the email card, stops delivery. Your address and domain verification are kept, so re-enabling later is one click and your existing forwarding rule still points to the right place. Remember to remove the forwarding rule at your provider too, otherwise your mail is being copied somewhere that ignores it.