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Connect Gmail to Zendesk

Zendesk runs the support queue, but a lot of the follow-up still happens by email: escalations to billing, chasers to quiet customers, a weekly summary for the boss. Connecting Gmail and Zendesk sends those emails from your own address at the right moment, based on what is happening in your tickets.
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Ideas

What you can do with Gmail and Zendesk

Weekly ticket summaries, billing escalations, AI reply drafts and polite follow-ups, sent from your Gmail. These are ready-made starting points. Anything else you can describe works too.
On a scheduleAI

Get a weekly email summarising your Zendesk tickets

Every Monday you get an email with the main themes in last week's tickets, how customers felt and anything unusual.

See how it works
Every 10 minutesAI

Email billing about payment tickets as they arrive

New tickets about payments are tagged urgent in Zendesk, and your billing team gets an email about each one straight away.

See how it works
Every 15 minutesAI

Draft replies to new tickets and email me the list

New Zendesk tickets get a suggested reply as an internal note, and you get an email listing which tickets are ready to review.

See how it works
On a schedule

Follow up on Zendesk tickets waiting on the customer

Each morning, customers whose tickets have been pending for a few days get a polite check-in email, and you get the list.

See how it works Your own logic

Any other automation you can describe in words

Your own rules, schedule and AI steps with Gmail and Zendesk, plus any other app. Describe it and your assistant builds it.

See how to build your own

Build your own

Build any Gmail and Zendesk automation you can describe

The ideas above are ready-made starting points, not a fixed list. Describe what should happen between Gmail and Zendesk in your own words, with your conditions, other apps or an AI step, and your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

For example, ask your assistant

Check my Gmail label "Escalate" every 10 minutes, and for each new email find the matching Zendesk ticket by requester email, add the email as an internal note and raise priority to high.

Email me every morning a list of Zendesk tickets that have had no agent reply for more than 24 hours, with an AI one-line summary of each.

Use cases

Why people connect Gmail and Zendesk

How the two apps work together

  • Zendesk can send a webhook to a ClickRuntime trigger link when a ticket is created or updated, so emails go out right away.
  • For the Gmail side, the script checks for new messages matching a label or search every few minutes.
  • Digests and backlog reports run on a schedule you choose, such as weekdays at 8am.

  • Support lead turns emails into tickets with context

    Customer emails that land in a shared Gmail inbox become Zendesk tickets with the requester, subject and a short AI summary. Nothing gets lost when someone forwards a complaint from their own inbox.

  • Account managers hear about their clients' tickets

    When a ticket from a key account is opened or goes urgent, the account owner gets an email with the ticket link and status. They can call the client before the client calls them.

  • Ops managers get a daily backlog email

    Each morning, open and pending tickets are counted by group and priority and sent as a short email. Managers see where the queue is growing without opening Zendesk.

  • Finance catches billing tickets early

    Tickets tagged billing or refund are emailed to the finance inbox with the order details from the ticket fields. Refunds get approved the same day instead of sitting in the support queue.

More apps

Gmail, Zendesk and other apps in one automation

An automation isn't limited to two apps. Add the next step in another app and it runs as part of the same automation.

Urgent Zendesk tickets to email and Slack

When a Zendesk ticket is set to urgent, email the account owner and post the ticket summary in #support-escalations on Slack.

Ticket email alerts with HubSpot deal value

When a new Zendesk ticket comes in, look up the requester in HubSpot and email me only if their company has an open deal over $10,000.

Log emailed feedback and tickets in Sheets

Every Friday, email me a summary of the week's Zendesk tickets by tag and add one row per tag with the counts to my Support Metrics Google Sheet.

Setup

Connect Gmail and Zendesk once

Every idea on this page uses the same two connections, so you set them up once. If one is missing, your assistant tells you and links to the right place.

Gmail

Email

  1. At console.cloud.google.com, create a project and enable the Gmail API under APIs & Services → Library.
  2. Set up the OAuth consent screen. On Google Workspace choose Internal. On a personal Gmail account choose External, then under Audience click Publish app so it is In production, not Testing.
  3. Under Data Access, add the scopes you need, such as https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify, or gmail.send if you only want to send.
  4. Under Clients, create an OAuth client of type Web application with the redirect URI https://clickruntime.com/oauth/callback.
  5. In the ClickRuntime dashboard, open Connections, choose Gmail and enter the client ID and secret. On a personal account Google shows an unverified-app screen: click Advanced, then go to your app.

Zendesk

Help desk

  1. In Zendesk Admin Center, go to Apps and integrations, then APIs, then API configuration, and turn on Allow API token access.
  2. Under API tokens, choose Add API token and copy it. Zendesk only shows it once.
  3. Note your Zendesk subdomain (the yourcompany in yourcompany.zendesk.com) and the email of the agent the token should act as.
  4. In the ClickRuntime dashboard, open Connections & secrets and save the token with your subdomain and agent email. It is sent as {email}/token with the token as the password.

FAQ

Questions about connecting Gmail and Zendesk

Which address do the emails come from?
Your own Gmail or Google Workspace address, so replies come back to your inbox as usual.
Does it send emails to customers automatically?
Only in the automations where you ask it to, such as follow-ups on pending tickets. Reply drafts stay in Zendesk as private notes for an agent to send.
How does it get into Zendesk?
With an API token from your Zendesk admin settings, saved as a secret in your ClickRuntime dashboard.
Is there a limit on how many emails it can send?
Gmail's own daily limits apply: about 500 messages a day on a free Gmail account and more on Google Workspace.
Can I use Zendesk's email channel instead?
Zendesk sends replies on tickets itself. These automations cover the emails around the queue, to colleagues, billing or you, that Zendesk does not send.
Can it add email replies to existing Zendesk tickets?
Yes. The script can match an email to a ticket by requester address or ticket number in the subject and add it as a public reply or internal note.
Which Zendesk permissions does the connection need?
An API token or OAuth connection from an agent or admin account that can see the tickets you want to read or update. Admin is needed only if the automation changes settings like triggers.
Will it create duplicate tickets for the same email thread?
Not if you ask it to dedupe. The script keeps state between runs, so it can store the Gmail thread ID and skip threads it already turned into tickets.

Related pages

Keep exploring

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