Send emails from your own address

You can send Zendo's emails from your own address, so that invitations, notifications and documents reach your clients from your business rather than from Zendo. To do this, you connect your own SMTP server, the mail server that sends email for your domain. Every email also has a logo and a footer, and you can replace both with your own on the Emails tab of Settings › Brand › Domain & email. Only the workspace owner can set up the sender.

Before you start

You need two things:

• Your own domain for the client portal. Until it is set up, the Custom email sender switch is off and the card says "Set up your custom domain before configuring a custom email sender." See Use your own domain.
• An SMTP server for your domain. Your email provider gives you its details: the host, the port, the username and the password. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, your hosting company, or a sending service such as SendGrid, Mailgun or Amazon SES can all provide one.

Connect your SMTP server

1. Sign in where you manage your domain's DNS and add an MX record, as shown in the table below. Wait until it works: usually 5 to 30 minutes, sometimes up to 48 hours.
2. In Zendo, open Settings › Brand › Domain & email and select the Emails tab.
3. Under Custom email domain, turn on Custom email sender.
4. Fill in the Sender name and the Sender email your clients will see in the From line.
5. Fill in the SMTP host, the SMTP port, the Encryption, the Username and the Password from your email provider. Use port 465 with SSL or port 587 with TLS.
6. Select Verify connection.
7. Select Save.

Why the MX record is needed

Your emails go out through your own SMTP server, but your clients' replies have to come back to Zendo, so that they land in the right request. The MX record sends those replies to Zendo.

The Reply-To address of your emails is on your portal domain, for example no-reply@clients.yourcompany.com, not the sender address. That is why the MX record has to be in place.

Verify connection sends a real email

Verify connection sends a message through the server you entered, so it tests more than whether the port is open. If something is wrong, Zendo tells you whether the problem is the username and password or the encryption, and does not save the settings.

Example: Google Workspace

You create the app password in your Google account. With Gmail or another ordinary mailbox, send from the same address you sign in with. To send from other addresses, use a sending service such as SendGrid or Amazon SES and verify your domain with it.

SPF, DKIM and bounces stay with your email provider

Zendo sends through your server, so it does not ask for SPF or DKIM records and does not check them. Set them up with your email provider, so that your emails do not land in spam.

Bounces also go to your email provider, because its server sends the emails. Zendo does not collect them or show them.

If your server stops working, emails still go out

If your SMTP server stops answering, the email is not lost. Zendo sends it through its own servers and notifies the workspace owner.

Emails to the workspace owner's own address always come from Zendo's servers, so that Zendo can tell you about a problem with your server.

Set the logo and the footer

1. If emails should show a logo other than your main one, turn on Use a custom logo, upload the Email logo (up to 1 MB) and set its width under Customize email logo size. To show no logo at all, turn on Hide logo.
2. In Custom email footer, write the text that Zendo adds at the bottom of every email to your clients. You have up to 5,000 characters.
3. Select Save.

By default, emails show your main logo from Settings › Brand › Identity. If you set a custom logo on the Emails tab, they show that one instead. The Dark mode logo is never used in emails or in PDFs. See Put your logo, favicon and app icon in place.

Which emails are sent

The Emails tab only changes how emails look and where they come from, not which ones are sent. That is decided on Settings › Workspace › Notifications, where you choose the in-app, browser and email notifications separately for your team and for your clients. Each person can then change their own. See Set notification defaults for your team and clients.

Messages inside Zendo come from the system bot

Messages that automations post inside Zendo, and entries in an order's history, are not emails. They are signed by the system bot, which you name under System bot on the Domain tab of Settings › Brand › Domain & email. See Name the system bot and set your help links.

Related

• Use your own domain
• Put your logo, favicon and app icon in place
• Set notification defaults for your team and clients
• Every notification your clients can get
• Name the system bot and set your help links

Updated on: 09/11/2026