Email

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Email Overview

Cortado sends customer-facing messages — quotes, invoices, reminders, and notifications — through email accounts you configure yourself. You have two outbound paths, and you can use one, both, or neither:

• Gmail OAuth — each team member links their own personal Gmail account. One linked account is marked as the organization’s default for automated system emails.
• Verified Domain — verify a domain you own (for example, acme.com) so Cortado can send as any address @acme.com. Verifying a domain also unlocks inbound email routing, so customers replying to Cortado messages are matched back to the right lead or booking.

Both paths are configured at Settings > Communications.

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Send Precedence

Whichever email Cortado is about to send, it picks the From address in this order:

1. Verified domain — if your organization has a verified domain, that’s the default for everything.
2. Your linked Gmail — for emails you personally compose, your own Gmail is used so customers can reply directly to you.
3. Organization’s default Gmail — used for automated system emails when no domain is verified.
4. Fail clearly — if none of the above is available, Cortado will not send the email and will tell you why.

For user-composed emails, you can override the default by picking a different From address from the dropdown when you have multiple identities available.

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Gmail OAuth

Each team member can link their own Gmail account through Settings > Communications > Connect Gmail. The Gmail Accounts table shows every linked account in the organization, including who connected each one.

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Connecting Gmail

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The Default Gmail

In the Gmail Accounts table, each account has a star icon. The starred account is the organization’s default — the one Cortado uses for system emails when no verified domain is configured. Click the star next to any account to make it the default. For emails you personally compose, your own linked Gmail is the default sender. This way replies land in your inbox, not a shared one.

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Disconnecting Gmail

Click the trash icon next to an account in the Gmail Accounts table. Cortado’s access to that mailbox is revoked immediately; your Gmail itself is untouched. If you disconnect the default account, pick a new default for the organization.

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Reconnecting Gmail

If a Gmail token is revoked or expires — for example, after a password change or after the user removes Cortado from their Google account permissions — Cortado flags the account as needing reconnection. The next time someone tries to send from that account, a friendly toast points them back to settings. Reconnecting takes the same steps as the first connection.

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Calendars Grouped by Gmail Account

When multiple Gmail accounts are connected, the Calendar setting groups available calendars by Gmail account so you can pick the right one. See Calendar for the full setup.

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Verified Domain

A verified domain lets Cortado send as any address at your domain — for example, bookings@acme.com or events@acme.com. It’s the most polished option for customer-facing email because messages come from your brand, not a Gmail address. Verifying a domain also enables inbound routing for customer replies. Set up at Settings > Communications > Email Domain.

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Adding and Verifying Your Domain

When you add your domain, Cortado shows the DNS records you need to add at your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, and so on):

• SPF (TXT) — authorizes Cortado’s email provider to send mail on your domain’s behalf.
• DKIM (TXT) — cryptographic signing so receivers can trust messages came from you.
• DMARC (TXT) — policy for how receiving mail servers handle unauthenticated mail claiming to be from your domain.
• MX (MX) — required only if you want inbound email routing.

Each record shows a per-record status badge: Verified, Pending, or Failed. After adding records at your registrar, click Refresh on an individual record — or refresh the whole domain — to re-check.

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Sending From a Verified Domain

Once verified, system emails and user-composed emails send from your domain instead of a Gmail address. In the Compose Email sheet, the From dropdown labels each option so you can tell where it’s coming from:

• (Domain) — an address on your verified domain
• (Gmail) — a linked Gmail account

See Compose Emails for how composing works in practice.

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Inbound Email Routing

When MX records are added and verified, customers replying to a Cortado message — or emailing any address at your verified domain — have their email routed into Cortado. Each incoming message is matched to a lead, booking, or contact based on the sender’s email address, and shows up in the record’s Emails tab automatically. Emails Cortado can’t match to an existing record are surfaced on the Unmatched Inbound Emails page (Settings > Communications) so you can clean up sender addresses or add new contacts and re-link them.

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Disabling Email

• Disconnect Gmail — click the trash icon next to an account. The next best option in the precedence list takes over.
• Remove domain — remove the domain from Settings > Email Domain to stop sending from it.
• Disabling both — means Cortado can no longer send email. Send Quote, Send Invoice, Send Reminder, and Compose Email are all disabled until you reconnect at least one option.

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Best Practices

1. Verify a domain early — sending from your own domain looks more professional than a Gmail address and unlocks inbound routing so replies come back into Cortado automatically.
2. Link a shared inbox if you don’t have a domain yet — a team@ or hello@ Gmail address makes reply handling easier than a personal account, especially if team members change.
3. Star the right default Gmail — system emails come from this account when no domain is verified, so make sure it’s the address customers should see for automated notifications.
4. Watch the Unmatched Inbound Emails page — keep an eye on it the first few weeks after enabling inbound routing to find typos and missing contact records.
5. Reconnect Gmail promptly when prompted — tokens expire occasionally; reconnecting takes under a minute and restores sending right away.
6. Test the full chain before a busy stretch — send a quote to yourself to confirm the From address, signature, and reply path all behave the way you expect.