Quick start

Create an account, then five setup steps connect your support email to Pip.

Before you start

You need a work email address. New accounts can't use personal addresses such as gmail.com, because your business's addresses in Airmailer are based on the domain you sign up with.

A logo, documents and writing rules all improve the replies, and you can add them at any time. None of them is needed to start receiving email.

Create your account

1. Open the sign-up page.
2. Enter your work email and choose Send code.
3. Enter the 6-digit sign-in code from the email and choose Sign in.

Airmailer opens Setup. Nothing is sent to a customer during setup.

Step 1: Business name

Enter your business's name. Customers see it as the sender of every reply. You can change it later under Settings > Email addresses, as Sender name.

Saving the name creates your forwarding address, such as acme-3f9k2p1abcd7xyz@reply.airmailer.dev. The random part makes the address impossible to guess, so nobody can send forged customer email to it.

Step 2: Sending domain

Add the DNS records Setup shows at the company where you bought your domain, or email them to the person who manages your website. Then check the records from this step. DNS changes can take a few hours, and you can continue setup in the meantime.

Until the records are found, replies are sent from your forwarding address instead of your own domain.

Step 3: Receiving email

Set up your email service to forward a copy of new email from your support address (usually support@yourdomain.com) to your forwarding address. Setup shows the steps for your email service. Nothing changes in your mailbox.

• Google Workspace: Gmail sends a confirmation code to the forwarding address, and Setup shows it in this step, with Gmail's confirmation link when the email has one. Gmail forwards nothing until the code is entered under Forwarding and POP/IMAP and Verify is clicked. The confirmation email doesn't appear in your Inbox and doesn't count as the test email.
• Microsoft 365: tick Keep a copy of forwarded messages. Microsoft 365 blocks forwarding to outside addresses unless an administrator allows it: in the Microsoft Defender portal, open Anti-spam outbound policy (Default), choose Edit protection settings and set Automatic forwarding rules to On - Forwarding is enabled.

No mailbox to forward from

If your business has no mailbox yet, Airmailer can receive email on a subdomain of yours instead:

• Your support address becomes support@help.yourdomain.com, for sending and receiving. Customers write to it, and their email reaches Pip without forwarding.
• The Sending domain step then shows the records for help.yourdomain.com, including an MX record for receiving. These are new records, even if you added records for yourdomain.com before. Until they are found, replies are sent from your forwarding address.
• Email to yourdomain.com itself isn't affected.
• While Pip is paused under Settings > Email addresses, email to this address waits in your Inbox as conversations that need a reply.

Step 4: Email design

Add your logo and choose one of four fonts that are already installed on most phones and computers. Both are optional. The accent colour, sign-off and footer address are under Settings > Email design.

Step 5: Test email

From a personal email account, send a test email to your support address. Setup checks for it every few seconds.

If the test email doesn't arrive:

• Check that the forwarding rule is active. Gmail forwards only once the confirmation code from step 3 is entered. Receiving on help.yourdomain.com instead? Check that the MX record shows as found.
• On Microsoft 365, check that forwarding to outside addresses is allowed (step 3). While it's blocked, the test email's sender gets a bounce with error 5.7.520.
• Check that the forwarding mailbox didn't file the test email as spam. Gmail doesn't forward spam.
• Check your Inbox in Airmailer. An email that arrived is listed there, with Pip's draft.

After setup

Email now reaches Pip, and replies are sent under your business's name. The steps below are optional and improve the drafts.

Add documents

Knowledge holds the documents Pip drafts replies from. Add an FAQ, a returns policy or a price list, as a file or a web page. Without documents, Pip has only your writing style and writing rules to work from, so this is the first thing to add.

Set the writing style

Settings > Writing style sets how replies sound (Warm, Crisp, Playful or your own words) and the writing rules Pip follows, such as "never promise a delivery date".

Choose what is sent automatically

Under Settings > Automatic sending:

• Approve every draft: every draft waits in your Inbox for approval. New accounts start here.
• Send drafts with 90% confidence or more: these drafts are sent automatically; the rest wait for approval.
• Send drafts with 75% confidence or more: these drafts are sent automatically; the rest wait for approval.

A draft without a confidence score always waits for approval.

Adjust the email design

Settings > Email design holds your logo, font, accent colour and footer address, with a preview of the real email.

Ask Pip

Ask Pip, at the top of every page, answers questions about Airmailer, finds conversations in your Inbox and can suggest a change to your writing style, Automatic sending or email font. Nothing changes until you choose Apply change on the suggestion.

Next steps

• Add more documents
• Set writing rules
• Add your team
• Drafts awaiting approval