A lot of people sign in to things with the email they've had since university and run the business from another one — the shop's address, the one on the business card, the one a partner also reads. That's normal. It's also why, until this week, a question kept coming up: "Why are my enquiries going to my personal Gmail?"
Because every message from your site's contact form went to the address you signed in with, and nothing could change that short of changing your login. Someone running a career-documents practice asked her site's assistant to send the enquiries to her business inbox instead, and the honest answer at the time was that it couldn't. She set up Gmail forwarding. That was the moment we decided this had to be something you just say.
Say it, type the code, done
Open your site and tell the assistant where the messages should go. It sends a six-digit code to that address — the same way a bank or a booking site makes sure an email is really yours — and you paste the code back into the chat. From then on, every enquiry lands in the inbox you named, with the visitor's own address as the reply-to, so answering is just hitting Reply.
That's the whole thing. No account settings to hunt through, no forwarding rule to remember you set up, and your sign-in email stays exactly as it was.
Why there's a code at all
Your messages are private. The code is what keeps them that way: only an address that can prove it's yours ever receives them, and until the code is entered nothing changes. The code is good for fifteen minutes, and if you ever want the messages back at your account email, that never needs one — say so, and it's done.
One more quiet safeguard: whenever the delivery address changes, the email you sign in with gets a short notice. Same idea as a "your password was changed" message. If you made the change, there's nothing to do. If you didn't, one click under Manage → Form puts it back.
If you'd rather click than type
The same change is under Manage → Form in the builder: a "Deliver to" line with the current address, a Change link, and a place to enter the code. Start it in the chat and finish it there, or the other way round — it's one setting either way.
- Enquiries go to the inbox you actually read — the shop's, the shared one, whichever you choose.
- Your sign-in email doesn't change. Logging in and getting messages are no longer the same address.
- Replying is just replying. Every message arrives with the visitor's address as the reply-to.
- Nothing to maintain. No forwarding rules, no filters, no second inbox to check.
If you're the person who asked for this in September: thank you, and sorry it took a few weeks. Your assistant can do it now.
Want enquiries somewhere else?
Open your site and tell the assistant. If you don't have a site yet, describe the one you want and it's live in minutes.