Migrate Your Email Support

Converge Team

• Updated March 12, 2026

How to migrate your email support workflows, templates, and history from Olark without losing data.

Migrating Email Support from Olark

Olark does not have a native email inbox channel. It's a live chat platform — email is not part of the product. If your team handles email support alongside Olark, you're likely using a separate tool (Gmail, Help Scout, Zendesk, or similar) or using Zapier/integration automations to forward Olark transcripts to email. This makes email "migration" less about moving data from Olark and more about consolidating email into your new platform.

How Olark Handles Email Today

Olark's only native email feature is offline messaging — when no agents are online, the chat widget shows an offline form that sends the visitor's message to your designated email address. These aren't managed in an inbox within Olark; they appear as offline messages in your transcript history. For actual email-based support, most Olark users rely on separate tools: Gmail for direct email, Help Scout or Zendesk for ticketing, or Zapier automations that send chat transcripts to email inboxes. Olark's !send command lets agents forward individual transcripts to connected CRM or helpdesk integrations during a chat.

Step 1: Audit Your Email Workflow

Document how your team currently handles email support. Common setups alongside Olark include: a shared Gmail inbox (e.g., [email protected]) managed directly, a helpdesk tool like Help Scout receiving forwarded transcripts, or Zapier automations that create tickets from Olark events. Note which email addresses customers use to reach you and where those emails currently land.

Step 2: Set Up Email on Your New Platform

Switching to a unified inbox platform means you can consolidate chat and email into one tool — replacing both Olark and your separate email solution. Most unified inbox platforms offer two email connection methods: Gmail integration (via OAuth or service account) for Google Workspace users, or custom domain email (via forwarding or Mailgun/SMTP routing) for any email provider. Set up the method that matches your current email infrastructure.

Step 3: Update Email Routing

If you're using email forwarding from [email protected] to a helpdesk, update the forwarding destination to your new platform's inbound address. For Gmail/Google Workspace: Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP → change forwarding address. For custom domains: update MX records or forwarding rules in your DNS/email provider. If using Zapier automations that connected Olark to email, you can disable those Zaps once your new platform handles both chat and email natively.

Step 4: Consolidation Benefits

Moving from Olark's chat-only approach to a unified inbox eliminates the fragmented workflow of managing chat in one tool and email in another. Customer conversations from email, chat widget, and messaging apps all appear in one place. Your agents no longer need to switch between Olark, Gmail, and potentially a helpdesk tool — reducing context-switching and improving response times.

Note: Since Olark has no email data to export, this migration is about setting up email support fresh on your new platform. Any email conversation history remains in your current email tool (Gmail, Help Scout, etc.) — it was never in Olark to begin with.