> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.useorbitcrm.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Replies and Email Forwarding

> Replies to emails you send from Orbit arrive in your Inbox on their own. Forward your mailbox to bring in the emails contacts start themselves.

## How It Works

Every email you send from Orbit, from a contact record, the Inbox, a sequence, or a meeting confirmation, goes out from your real address on your workspace's verified sending domain. Its reply address is an Orbit address that names the conversation, shown to the contact as **"Your Name from Your Workspace"**. When the contact presses Reply, their answer comes straight to Orbit:

* **It appears in your [Inbox](https://docs.useorbitcrm.ai/guides/inbox.md)** and on the contact's record, threaded with what you sent.
* **It marks the email as replied.** A reply to a sequence email marks the step as replied and unenrolls the contact when the sequence's exit criteria say so. A reply to an email sent from a contact record or the Inbox marks that email as replied.
* **Nothing to set up.** Replies work for every workspace member as soon as sending does.

This mirrors how a support desk routes replies to the ticket rather than to the agent's mailbox. Orbit is where you read and answer prospect email.

> [!NOTE]
>
> **Key points:**
>
> * Your contacts see your real email address as the sender. Only the reply address is Orbit's.
> * Replies to emails sent from Orbit arrive in Orbit, not in Gmail or Outlook. Work from the Inbox.
> * Emails a contact starts themselves still land in your regular mailbox. To bring those into Orbit too, set up forwarding below.

## What Forwarding Adds

Forwarding sends a copy of the mail your mailbox receives to a unique Orbit address. With it, Orbit also:

* **Saves new emails from your contacts.** When a contact writes to you first, the message is saved to their record and shows up in your Inbox.
* **Saves what you send from your mail client.** BCC your Orbit forwarding address on an email you write in Gmail or Outlook, and it is saved to the recipient's record as a sent email.
* **Catches replies to older emails.** Emails sent before your workspace had Orbit reply addresses still get their replies in your mailbox; forwarding brings those in and marks them replied.

Mail from people who are not contacts is not kept (see [Privacy & Security](#privacy--security)). Forwarding is optional: replies to emails you send from Orbit never depend on it.

## Setup Instructions

### Step 1: Find Your Forwarding Address

1. Go to **Settings → Email & SMS** in your Orbit dashboard
2. Open the **Mailbox forwarding** row (it is collapsed by default: replies to emails you send from Orbit never need it)
3. You'll see a unique forwarding address for each connected email account (no account yet? Connect Google from that section first)
4. Click the copy button to copy the address

### Step 2: Add the Address in Gmail

1. Open **Gmail** and click the gear icon → **See all settings**
2. Go to the **Forwarding and POP/IMAP** tab
3. Click **Add a forwarding address**
4. Paste your Orbit forwarding address and click **Next**

Gmail sends a confirmation email to your Orbit address. You don't need to find this email yourself: Orbit receives it automatically and the next step appears in your settings.

### Step 3: Confirm Forwarding

Once Orbit receives Gmail's confirmation email, the mailbox's badge changes to **Confirm in Gmail** and two steps appear:

1. Click the **Confirm Forwarding** button. It opens Gmail's confirmation page in a new tab where you approve the forwarding.
2. Click the **Gmail Forwarding Settings** link to go back to Gmail's forwarding settings, then:
   * Select **"Forward a copy of incoming mail to"** your Orbit address
   * Choose **"keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox"** from the dropdown
   * Click **Save Changes**

> [!WARNING]
>
> Make sure to select **"keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox"** so your emails are not deleted after forwarding.

After completing these steps, the status updates to **"Active"** once Orbit receives the first forwarded email. This usually happens within a few minutes.

You'll also see the status on the **Settings** tab of each sequence, next to "Mailbox forwarding".

### Alternative: Google Workspace Routing

If your organization uses Google Workspace and personal forwarding is disabled by your admin, an admin can forward copies for you:

1. In the **Google Admin console**, go to **Apps → Google Workspace → Gmail → Routing**
2. Add a routing rule for inbound messages to the mailbox
3. Under **Also deliver to**, choose **Add more recipients** and add the Orbit forwarding address
4. Keep the original delivery enabled so the mailbox still receives the message

The copy arrives at the Orbit address exactly like a personal forward, so no confirmation step is needed.

### Alternative: Set Up Forwarding in Outlook or Microsoft 365

1. Open **Outlook** and go to **Settings** (gear icon)
2. Go to **Mail → Forwarding** (or **Mail → Rules** for a redirect rule)
3. Check **Enable forwarding** and paste your Orbit forwarding address
4. Make sure **Keep a copy of forwarded messages** is checked
5. Click **Save**

If your Microsoft 365 admin blocks external forwarding, ask them to allow it for your mailbox or to add an Exchange mail flow rule that BCCs the Orbit address.

## Saving Emails to Contact Records

Replies to emails sent from Orbit are always saved to the conversation they answer: the contact's **Email** tab, their activity timeline, and your **Inbox**. A reply from a second address, or from a colleague the contact looped in, stays on that contact's record too.

With forwarding active, every forwarded email whose sender is a contact in your workspace is saved to that contact in the same places. Replying from Orbit threads correctly in the contact's mail client (In-Reply-To and References headers are set).

Each mailbox has its own switch, **Save emails from contacts**, under Settings → Email & SMS → Mailbox forwarding. It applies to forwarded mail: turn it off and forwarded emails are no longer stored, while replies to emails you send from Orbit keep arriving.

Workspace admins control two more rules under **Settings → Inbound Email**:

| Setting | Default | What it does |
| - | - | - |
| Create a contact for unknown senders | Off | When on, a forwarded email from someone who is not a contact creates the contact and is saved to it. When off, it is not kept. |
| Ignored addresses | Empty | Senders (or whole domains, written as `@domain.com`) whose email is never saved, even when they are contacts. |

The same page shows the **Inbound log**: one line per email Mailgun delivered to an Orbit address, with the outcome (Saved, Skipped, Rejected, Error) and the reason. Use it when an email you expected does not appear on a record.

## Removing Forwarding

To stop forwarding for an email account:

1. Go to **Settings → Email & SMS** and open **Mailbox forwarding**
2. Click the **Remove** button next to the account
3. Open your **Gmail forwarding settings** and remove the forwarding rule or set it back to **"Disable forwarding"**

> [!NOTE]
>
> Removing forwarding in Orbit does not remove the forwarding rule in Gmail. Disable it in both places. Replies to emails you send from Orbit are unaffected.

## How Reply Detection Works

When a contact replies to an email you sent through Orbit:

1. Their mail client addresses the reply to the email's Orbit reply address, which names the conversation
2. Orbit checks that the address names an email it sent and carries that sender's prefix; an altered or guessed address is dropped and logged. The address routes the message to its conversation. It does not verify who wrote the reply: an answer from a second address, or from a colleague the contact looped in, is filed on the same conversation
3. The reply is saved to the contact's record and your Inbox, in the thread of the email it answers
4. The sequence step (or the composer email) is marked as "replied"
5. If "Email reply received" is enabled in the sequence's exit criteria, the contact is automatically unenrolled

For a forwarded email, Orbit instead reads the `In-Reply-To` and `References` headers, matches them against the Message-ID it stored when the original email was sent, and checks that the sender matches the contact the email was sent to.

Automatic replies (out-of-office messages, auto-acknowledgements) and bounces are never counted as replies. Out-of-office messages from contacts are still saved to the record, flagged as auto-replies.

## Privacy & Security

* **What is stored.** For a reply to an email sent from Orbit, and for a forwarded email whose sender (or, for BCC'd mail you sent, whose recipient) is a contact in your workspace, Orbit stores the subject, the message text and HTML (with quoted earlier messages removed when the mail client marks them), the sender and recipient addresses, the date, the threading headers and the sender-authentication result. Attachments are not stored.
* **What is not stored.** Forwarded email from anyone who is not a contact is not kept unless an admin turns on "Create a contact for unknown senders". Mail from automated addresses is never kept, even when that address is a contact: no-reply and do-not-reply senders (`noreply@`, `payments-noreply@`), `notifications@` and `alerts@` boxes, dedicated `notifications.` / `alerts.` / `notify.` subdomains, and Stripe's receipt relays. Nobody reads replies there, so it is not a conversation. The inbound log keeps only the headers, the subject and the decision for every delivery.
* **Per-mailbox control.** Each person can turn saving of forwarded email off for their mailbox.
* **Reply addresses route, they do not authenticate.** Each reply address names one sent email and carries its sender's prefix; a message is only filed when both match, so a guessed address goes nowhere. Anyone who holds a valid address (the contact, or someone they forward the email to) can place a message on that one conversation and mark the email replied. The sender-authentication result is stored with every message so you can tell.
* **Sender verification.** Orbit checks SPF and DKIM alignment on every inbound email and marks messages that fail as "Unverified sender" so you can treat links and requests in them with care. Forwarding by your own mail system is recognised, so legitimate mail is not flagged.
* **Replay and duplicate protection.** Each delivery is processed once, and a message with the same Message-ID is stored once per workspace.
* **Team-scoped.** Matching and storage are restricted to the workspace that owns the address. Inbound email can never interact with another workspace's data.
* **Your forwarding address is unique.** Each connected email account gets its own forwarding address, scoped to your user account.

## FAQ

> [accordion] Does this change what my contacts see?
>
> They still see your real email address as the sender. When they reply, their mail client addresses the answer to your Orbit reply address, shown as "Your Name from Your Workspace". Nothing else changes for them.

> [accordion] Will I see replies in Gmail or Outlook?
>
> Replies to emails you send from Orbit arrive in your Orbit Inbox, not in your mailbox. Emails a contact starts themselves still arrive in your mailbox; forwarding brings a copy into Orbit.

> [accordion] Why isn't an email showing up on the contact's record?
>
> Open **Settings → Inbound Email** and check the Inbound log. For forwarded mail the most common reasons: the sender is not a contact yet, saving is turned off for that mailbox, or the forwarding rule in your mail client is not active.

> [accordion] How do I log an email I wrote in Gmail?
>
> BCC your Orbit forwarding address when you send it. Orbit recognises your address as the sender and saves the email to the recipient's record as a sent email.

> [accordion] What if I don't set up forwarding?
>
> Replies to emails you send from Orbit still arrive in your Inbox, and still unenroll contacts when the sequence's exit criteria say so. Emails contacts start themselves, and emails you write in Gmail or Outlook, won't appear in Orbit.

> [accordion] Can I use this with multiple email accounts?
>
> Yes. Each connected email account has its own unique forwarding address. Set up forwarding separately for each account you use.


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