Migrate Your Email Support

How do you migrate your email support from Groove?

Groove routes email through forwarding rules or a Gmail OAuth shared mailbox. Migrating means redirecting your forwarding to a new platform's inbound address, revoking Gmail OAuth access, and updating any white-label DNS records — Groove's stored conversations stay in Groove and need a separate JSON export.

The forwarding-based architecture means your customer-facing email ([email protected]) lives at Gmail, Outlook, or another provider. Groove only receives forwarded copies and sends replies through its own shared SMTP servers, which Groove documents as powered by Amazon SES (help.groovehq.com, 2024). Switching platforms is therefore a forwarding-rule swap, not a mailbox migration.

Two paths exist depending on your setup: forwarding from Gmail, Outlook, Google Groups, Yahoo, or cPanel, or Groove's direct Gmail OAuth shared mailbox connection. IMAP and Microsoft direct mailbox connections were retired in September 2024 — Groove pushed all customers to forwarding-only (help.groovehq.com, 2024). Document which method each inbox uses before changing anything; the disconnect steps differ for forwarding versus OAuth.

Which email providers does Groove support?

Groove supports forwarding from Gmail, Outlook (Microsoft 365), Google Groups, Yahoo, GoDaddy, Zoho, and cPanel-hosted email, plus a direct Gmail OAuth integration for shared mailboxes (help.groovehq.com, 2024). IMAP and direct Microsoft 365/Outlook mailbox connections were deprecated in September 2024.

The forwarding model is identical across providers: each Groove shared inbox gets a unique address ([email protected]), and you configure your mail provider's native forwarding feature to copy incoming mail there. Replies from agents go out through Groove's shared SMTP (Amazon SES) but appear to come from your domain once you white-label with the CNAME records Groove supplies (help.groovehq.com, 2024).

The Gmail OAuth path differs. Groove connects directly to a Gmail shared mailbox using Google's OAuth scope, eliminating the forwarding hop. This makes both incoming and outgoing mail flow through Gmail itself — better for deliverability, but tightly coupled to one Google account. Revoking the OAuth grant in your Google Account security settings is what cuts the link.

How do you export email conversations from Groove before switching?

Owners and Admins request a JSON conversation export from SettingsCompanyMoreExports. Groove processes exports in a shared FIFO queue — small accounts finish in minutes, larger accounts can take up to 72 hours (help.groovehq.com, 2024). No CSV format is offered.

Only one export request can be active at a time. When ready, Groove emails a download link backed by a short-lived Amazon S3 signed URL that cannot be shared with other users. The file is GZIP-compressed JSON matching Groove's v1 Tickets API "full" conversations format, which includes ticket metadata, every message in each thread, customer contact details, tags, and custom field values.

Knowledge base articles, Instant Replies (canned responses), and Rules (if-then automation) are not part of the export. Knowledge Base articles and Instant Replies can still be exported as CSV by emailing Groove support; Rules have no export path at all and must be recorded by hand in their execution order. The full procedure for each — including what happens to your data after cancellation — is in the guide to exporting data from Groove.

How do you update forwarding rules when leaving Groove?

At your email provider's admin panel, replace Groove's inbound address with your new platform's forwarding address. The exact path varies per provider, but the change takes effect almost immediately — within seconds for most providers, up to a few minutes for Outlook Exchange.

For Gmail: SettingsSee all settingsForwarding and POP/IMAPedit forwarding address. For Outlook/Microsoft 365: Exchange Admin CenterMail flowRules (or per-mailbox forwarding under RecipientsMailboxes). For Google Groups: Group SettingsEmail optionscustom routing. For cPanel: EmailForwardersedit destination. For Yahoo and Zoho: Mail SettingsFilters or Forwarding (provider-specific).

If you used Gmail OAuth instead of forwarding, head to your Google AccountSecurityThird-party apps with account access and revoke Groove's permission. This severs Groove's mailbox access immediately and stops new mail from appearing in the Groove inbox.

Can you migrate email from Groove without support downtime?

Yes. Because Groove receives forwarded copies rather than owning your mailbox, you can forward incoming mail to both Groove and your new platform at the same time, then cut Groove off only after the new inbox is confirmed working.

Most providers let a single address forward to more than one destination (Gmail supports multiple verified forwarding addresses; Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 do it with routing rules). Add your new platform's inbound address as a second forwarding target while Groove's stays live. For a day or two the same customer email lands in both inboxes — you answer from the new platform and keep Groove as a fallback. Once you've verified replies send correctly and DNS validates, remove the Groove forwarding entry and revoke any Gmail OAuth grant. Help Desk Migration recommends this parallel-run window as standard practice for Groove moves (help-desk-migration.com, 2024). No message is ever dropped because mail is never routed through only one system during the switch.

What happens to Groove's white-label DNS records (SPF, DKIM)?

Groove white-labels shared-SMTP inboxes with two CNAME records plus one TXT record that you add to validate your sending address; only inboxes using Groove's SMTP servers carry these entries (help.groovehq.com, 2024). When switching platforms, delete those three records and replace them with your new platform's authentication entries.

Find the exact records inside Groove at SettingsChannelsEmail(edit inbox)SMTP configuration, where Groove lists the two CNAME records and one TXT record it generated for your domain (help.groovehq.com, 2024). These point at Groove's Amazon SES sending infrastructure. Copy them before you delete anything so you can confirm each one is gone after the cutover — a stale DKIM CNAME left in your zone is harmless but clutters your DNS and can confuse later deliverability audits.

Gmail OAuth inboxes are the exception: because outbound mail flows through Gmail itself, Groove adds no DNS records for them and DMARC is configured in your Google Workspace admin console, not in Groove (help.groovehq.com, 2024). For those inboxes there's nothing to remove from your zone — you only revoke the OAuth grant.

DNS changes take up to 48 hours to fully propagate. To minimise downtime, add your new platform's records first, verify they validate, then remove the Groove records the next day. If you run a DMARC policy of p=reject, lower it to p=none during the cutover so legitimate mail isn't blocked.

Can a new platform import Groove's historical email conversations?

Most platforms do not natively import Groove's v1 Tickets JSON format. The pragmatic approach is to keep your Groove export as a searchable archive while new conversations start fresh on the new platform — or use a third-party service like Help Desk Migration (help-desk-migration.com) for automated transfer.

Help Desk Migration's Groove service maps conversations, customers, tags, and custom fields into target platforms including Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Intercom on a per-record-priced model. It runs against Groove's API rather than the JSON export, so you don't need to time the export carefully.

For self-serve migrations, the JSON archive is enough. Customers reach out again when they need help, agents search the archive locally, and the new platform handles incoming mail from day one. Converge takes this approach — $49/month flat rate for up to 15 agents, starting with a clean inbox, with the Groove archive serving as historical reference.