Set Up Email Importing

You can import support ticket reply emails into WHMCS using IMAP or POP3 and an email account.

Set Up Email Importing

To do this:

  1. Create the email account that your support department will use.

    Make certain that you use a different email account for each support department.

  2. Check to ensure that Imap-SSL/Pop3-SSL is enabled in your WHMCS installation’s PHP configuration.

    For help updating your PHP configuration, contact your hosting provider or system administrator.

  3. In the WHMCS Admin Area, go to Configuration () > System Settings > Support Departments.

  4. Create a new support department, making sure to enter the correct hostname and port for your email account.

  5. Use your preferred method to create a cron job that runs the /crons/pop.php script every 5 minutes.

  6. Set up your email accounts:

    • For POP3 or IMAP, create a unique email account on your mail server for each support department.
      This must be a mailbox; an alias is not sufficient.
      For steps to enable email importing using POP3 and IMAP, see Set Up Email Importing.
    • For OAuth 2 with Google or Microsoft, configure your mail service provider and create an app for it.
  7. In WHMCS, go to Configuration () > System Settings > Support Departments.
    The list of support departments in the Admin Area.

  8. Create a new department and enter the top section of information or, for existing departments, click Edit.
    Editing a support department in the Admin Area.

  9. Enter the email information for the department:

    1. Select a service provider.
    2. Enter the appropriate details for your service provider.
    3. If you selected OAuth2 as your authentication type for Google, enter your email address and the ClientID and Client Secret values that you generated. Then, click Connect.
  10. Set up a cron job to run the pop.php file using the Ticket Importing using Mail Importing (POP3/IMAP) command that displays at Configuration () > System Settings > Support Departments.
    Importing Cron Commands
    We recommend that you set this to run every five minutes.

Workaround for SSL Handling

In some cases, your server may not handle SSL with POP3 correctly.

To work around this issue:

  1. Create another POP3 email account using a different domain name that does not require SSL.
  2. Forward your email account to that email address.
  3. In WHMCS, use POP3 to retrieve the email from the new email address.

Last modified: 2025 May 7