Redirecting your email from various email providers

Overview

Front connects to most email accounts by having your email provider redirect a copy of every incoming message to a unique Front forwarding address. You then reply from Front, and your messages are delivered as your own address.

Use this method for any provider other than Gmail or Microsoft 365 sync accounts. These providers connect through a native two-way sync instead, so you do not need to set up redirection for them.

How it works

Setting up a redirect is one step in a larger workflow. The full path is:

Create an SMTP channel in Front and copy your unique Front forwarding address (ends in in.frontapp.com).
Redirect your email from your provider to that address (the instructions on this page).
Validate the channel in Front so it starts receiving mail.

Redirect vs. forward

Make sure you choose your provider's redirect option, not a forward.

A redirect preserves the original sender's address, so Front (and your customers) see who originally wrote the email, and validation can complete.
A forward rewrites the sender as your own address. When you do this, Front can't validate the channel and conversations show up as coming from you instead of your customer — even though you did receive Front's test email.

If validation isn't completing even though the test/validation email arrived in your inbox, the most common cause is that a forward was set up instead of a redirect. Switch it to a redirect and re-run validation.

Providers

Select your provider and follow their instructions to redirect your email to Front.

If your provider isn't listed, you may still be able to connect it. In almost every mail provider the setting lives under a name like Forwarding, Redirect, Rules, or Filters in the account or mailbox settings.