Email channel
Configure Gmail, Google Workspace, or Outlook as a support channel with AI triage and drafting.
How email works in Liya
When an email arrives at your connected inbox, Liya:
- Creates a new conversation (or appends to an existing thread if the subject matches)
- Extracts the message content, stripping quoted history and signatures
- Classifies intent, urgency, and sentiment using your AI settings
- Retrieves relevant knowledge base articles
- Generates a draft reply, grounded in those articles
- Applies routing rules to assign the conversation to the right agent or group
All of this happens before any agent opens the conversation — typically within 2–4 seconds of the email arriving.
Email threading
Liya groups email replies into conversations using the Message-ID and Referencesheaders — the same threading mechanism used by Gmail and Outlook. As long as the customer replies to the same email thread, all messages stay in one conversation in Liya.
If a customer starts a new email about the same topic, Liya creates a separate conversation. You can manually merge conversations from the three-dot menu in the conversation header.
Sender identification
Liya automatically matches email senders to existing contacts using their email address. When a known contact emails you, the conversation is pre-filled with their history, prior tickets, and any custom attributes you've set.
Configuring email channel settings
Go to Settings → Channels → [your email channel] to access the following settings:
Display name and From address
The display name appears in the recipient's inbox (e.g. "Acme Support"). The From address is the email address replies are sent from. By default this is the connected mailbox address.
Default signature
Add a default HTML or plain-text signature appended to all outbound replies from this channel. Individual agents can override the signature in their profile settings.
Auto-reply (out of hours)
Configure an automatic acknowledgement sent to customers who email outside business hours. Common content: expected response time, a link to your help center, emergency contact options.
CC and BCC handling
| Scenario | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Customer CCs another address | The CC'd address receives all reply emails but is not added as a Liya contact |
| Agent BCCs an address on reply | Supported via the composer BCC field; external recipient gets a copy |
| Inbound email has multiple To:s | Only emails addressed to your connected support inbox are imported |
Email formatting and rendering
Liya renders HTML emails in the conversation view with images, formatting, and links intact. Plain-text emails are displayed as-is. Very long emails with quoted history are collapsed by default — click "Show full email" to expand.
AI-drafted replies are generated in plain text by default. To enable rich-text drafts (bold, lists, links), go to Settings → AI → Reply format → HTML.
Attachments
Inbound email attachments are stored and displayed inline in the conversation view. Supported formats: PDF, images (JPG, PNG, GIF, WEBP), Word documents, spreadsheets, and plain text. Maximum attachment size: 25 MB per file.
Agents can attach files when replying from the composer. Files are stored in Liya and sent as standard email attachments to the customer.
Advanced: custom inbound email address
If you want to use a custom subdomain for your support email (e.g. [email protected]rather than connecting your main mailbox), you can set up email forwarding:
Get your Liya forwarding address
Go to Settings → Channels → Email → Forwarding address. You'll see a unique address like [email protected].
Set up forwarding in your domain provider
Configure your domain's email forwarding (or create a mailbox forwarding rule) to route all email from [email protected] to your Liya forwarding address.
Set up SMTP for outbound replies
Configure SMTP credentials for [email protected] in Liya so that outbound replies come from your custom address, not from the Liya forwarding address.