Connect your mailbox
This is the step that makes everything else work: until you connect a mailbox, the platform receives nothing. About ten minutes, and from then on every email that reaches your support address shows up in the inbox as a ticket.
Use a dedicated support account, never your personal email
From the moment you connect the mailbox, the platform reads every unread email that arrives and turns it into a ticket. Anything older than that is left alone — but if you connect your personal account, every email you receive from then on becomes a ticket. Create a new account along the lines of support@yourcompany.com.
Gmail, step by step
First things first, to save you some trips: Gmail does not accept your account password for connecting programs like this one. You need an "app password", which is sixteen letters that Google generates separately. And that option does not exist until you turn on two-step verification. That is why the order below matters.
1. Turn on two-step verification
Sign in to the support account —not your own— and go straight to this address:
myaccount.google.com/signinoptions/twosv
Press Get started. Google will ask for your password and a phone number, and will send you a code to confirm it. When you are done, the screen will say that two-step verification is on.
2. Create the app password
This is where almost everyone gets stuck: this option does not appear in any menu. Even if you search the whole Security section, you will not find it. Go straight to the address below.
myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
Give it a name you will recognise —CALADESK, for example— and press Create. The name does not matter: it is only so you know where it came from.
If it tells you the option is not available, it is for one of two reasons: you have not finished step 1 yet, or the account belongs to a Google Workspace organisation whose administrator has them disabled.
3. Keep the sixteen letters safe
Google shows you something like abcd efgh ijkl mnop, in four groups of four. The spaces are only there to make it readable: copy them and paste them together, with no spaces.
They are shown only once. Once you close that window you will not be able to see them again — and if you lose them nothing breaks, you delete that one and create another. And remember: this is the password you paste into CALADESK, not your Google account password.
4. Fill in the settings in CALADESK
Go to Email in the menu. You will see your company's list of mailboxes —empty the first time—. Press Add mailbox, choose the IMAP / SMTP type and fill in:
| IMAP server | imap.gmail.com, port 993 |
| IMAP username | the full address of the support account |
| IMAP password | the sixteen letters from step 2 |
| SMTP server | smtp.gmail.com, port 587 |
| SMTP username | the same address again |
| SMTP password | the same sixteen letters again |
| TLS | on |
Shortcut: type the IMAP username first and leave the field. If it is a Gmail address, the platform fills in the servers and ports on its own, and all that is left is pasting the passwords. It never overwrites anything you typed yourself.
The incoming details (IMAP) and the outgoing ones (SMTP) are filled in separately, even when they are the same. If you leave the SMTP ones blank, the platform will receive emails but will not be able to reply.
5. Test it and save
Press Test connection to check that the details are right. Then press Save: testing saves nothing, so if you leave the screen without saving, the settings are lost.
If something does not work
| What you see | What happens |
|---|---|
| "Authentication failed" when testing | Almost always the account password instead of the app one. It has to be the sixteen letters, pasted with no spaces. |
| "App passwords" is nowhere to be found | Two-step verification is not finished, or the Workspace administrator has them disabled. |
| Tickets arrive but replies do not go out | The SMTP details are missing. They are filled in separately from the IMAP ones, even when they are identical. |
| No tickets arrive at all | The platform only reads unread emails. If something marked them as read beforehand, it will not see them. |
| The settings were lost | Testing the connection saves nothing. You have to press Save afterwards. |
Three things worth knowing
- You can connect more than one mailbox. If you handle several addresses —support@ and billing@, for instance— you repeat the same process from "Add mailbox", and tickets from all of them land in the same inbox.
- Nothing is lost if something fails halfway. An email is marked as read only after it has been saved as a ticket. If the process is interrupted, it is fetched again on the next cycle, without duplicating.
- The conversation stays in a single case. When the customer replies to an email from the ticket, their reply is added to the same thread instead of opening a new one.
Not using CALADESK yet?
Email is one of the channels. Telegram, WhatsApp and a form on your website come in too, and it all ends up in the same inbox.
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