Inbound Email Allowlist and Blocklist in BoldDesk
When handling emails, there are plenty of opportunities for spam to reach your inbox—or cases where you may want to allow only your organization’s users and block external senders. BoldDesk provides Allowlist and Blocklist controls to precisely manage who can submit support requests via email.
Check out this video tutorial.
Where to Configure
Follow the given steps to enable these settings:
- Go to Admin > Emails > Configurations.
- Here, you can find the options to add whitelist and blacklist for the emails.
Key Concepts & Priority Rules
Allowlist
- Use Allowlist to let specific FROM email addresses or domains submit requests to your BoldDesk.
- Allowlist priority: If the same domain or sender is present in both allowlist and blocklist, allowlist can still permit the sender, subject to the exceptions below.
- Autoresponder/no‑reply loop prevention:
If you add a typical no‑reply or automated sender to the allowlist specifically to prevent looping, only the first email from that sender is allowed and converted to a ticket. Subsequent emails are suspended to avoid loops. You can review and restore suspended emails when needed.
Allowlist Support Matrix
| Case | Allowlist Overrides? |
|---|---|
| BlackListed Sender Or Domain | Yes |
| Automated Response Email (Validation using mail headers) | Yes |
| Email Authentication Failed | No |
| Detected As Spam | No |
| Sender Is Not Person | No |
| Received From Support Address | No |
| Automated Response Email (AUTO-REPLY, OUT OF OFFICE, VACATION) | No |
| Request Limit Exceeded | No |
| Sender Account Blocked | No |
| Sender Account Deactivated | No |
| Sender Account Already Deleted | No |
| Sender Account Not Exist | No |
| Permission Denied | No |
- The allowlist/blocklist restrictions apply to the sender (FROM) address. They do not change your support mailbox (TO) address behavior.
- If the allowlist entry is used to permit an automated/no‑reply source, only the first email will be created as a ticket; later emails are suspended to prevent loops. For normal human senders you allowlist, all emails are allowed (unless they fail authentication or are flagged as spam per the Allowlist Support Matrix).
Blocklist
Use the Blocklist to prevent specific senders or entire domains from registering and submitting support requests.
Two block actions are available:
1) Suspend (Soft block)
- It acts as a soft block. This means that the emails marked in this category would be generated as separate entries as suspended emails. You can find the tickets in the suspended ticket view page.
- You can restore or reject these emails by manually validating them.
- You can block all emails or domains using the wildcard (*) symbol.
2) Reject (Hard block)
- It acts as a hard block. These emails are denied; you cannot keep any logs for these emails.
- The wildcard symbol is not supported for reject case.
Updated Precedence Examples (Clarified)
| From Address | Allowlist | Blocklist | Our Action |
|---|---|---|---|
abc@gmail.com |
Domain (gmail.com) |
|
|
Domain(gmail.com) |
Email(abc@gmail.com) |
|
|
Email(abc@gmail.com) |
Domain(gmail.com) |
|
|
Email(abc@gmail.com) |
Email(abc@gmail.com) |
|
|
| [empty] | Email(abc@gmail.com)Note: both Suspended and Rejected |
|
|
| [empty] | wildcard character (*) Note: Suspended only |
|
|
Email(abc@gmail.com) |
wildcard character (*) Note: Suspended only |
|
|
Domain(gmail.com) |
wildcard character (*) Note: Suspended only |
|
Domain Blocking: Correct Format & Best Practices
- Do not include @ when adding domains to Blocklist.
Enter the domain only (e.g.,xyzcompany.com).
Including @ will result in a validation error. - Prefer Suspend over Reject for broad domain blocks to maintain visibility in Suspended logs and allow manual recovery when needed.
- Reject is best for domains you want to silence completely (no logs), and does not support wildcard.
Use case: Allow One or More Emails from a Blocked Domain
If you want to block an entire domain but permit one or more specific senders from that domain:
- Add exceptions:
Add the specific email addresses (e.g., user1@example.com, user2@example.com) to Allowlist.
- Result:
Emails from these allowlisted addresses will be allowed and converted to tickets.
All other senders from the blocked domain will be suspended or rejected, based on your block action.
FAQs
Q1. Should I use Suspend or Reject for blocking a domain?
Use Suspend if you want emails logged in Suspended for review and potential restoration. Use Reject if you want to deny emails without logs. Wildcard is supported in Suspend but not in Reject.
Q2. Why do I get an error when entering domain in Blocklist?
Domains must be entered without @ (e.g., example.com). Using @ triggers a validation error.
Q3. Do allowlist/blocklist apply to the TO address or the FROM address?
They apply to the FROM (sender) address. They do not change the behaviour of your support mailbox (TO) address.
Q4. If I allowlist a no‑reply/automated sender, will all its emails create tickets?
No. For autoresponder/no‑reply sources allowlisted to avoid looping, only the first email creates a ticket; subsequent emails are suspended. You can restore them as needed.
Q5. Why are emails from an allowlisted sender still not creating tickets?
Check the Allowlist Support Matrix: allowlist does not override authentication failures, spam detection, account status issues, or permission limits. Also verify there is no exact email blocklist entry.
Q6. My test emails show delivered in my mailbox logs, but no tickets in BoldDesk. What should I check?
Confirm Suspended view, Blocklist/Allowlist entries, domain format, forwarding settings, and contact status (e.g., not soft‑deleted). Fix any auth/spam issues if present.
