Forward Shopify Contact Form Emails to Your Helpdesk

Shopify’s theme contact form sends every submission to your store’s sender email, not the email you signed up with. To get those messages into a helpdesk, forward them from the sender email’s inbox. To make sure replies reach the customer instead of you, pick the right forwarding type (in Outlook, that means “Redirect to”, not “Forward to”) and run a real test before you trust it.

Here is how each piece works, with rules for Gmail and Outlook and a test checklist at the end.

Where does the Shopify contact form actually send emails?

Shopify’s help center says it plainly: “Your contact form sends all submissions to your store’s sender email address.” That applies to the built-in theme form, the page that uses the “contact” template.

The sender email is the customer-facing address listed in Settings > Notifications, and the address where contact form submissions are delivered. The store email is a different address: the one you used when you signed up for Shopify. My support email address setup guide goes deeper on the difference.

To change where submissions go, change your sender email address on the Notifications settings page of your Shopify admin. If it is on a third-party domain, you might also need to authenticate your domain.

Theme contact form vs Shopify Forms app

Shopify has two different form systems, and they behave differently. Many forum answers mix them up.

	Theme contact form	Shopify Forms app
Where notifications go	Sender email (source)	The email address listed in your store details (source)
Reply-to on the notification	Test it yourself (see checklist)	The customer’s email address (source)
How to turn on notifications	Always on	Per form, at Apps > Forms > [form] > Email notifications (source)
Multiple recipients	Not covered in Shopify’s help page	Shopify points to a Flow automation (source)

For the Forms app, the reply-to change went live on June 12, 2025. If the customer gave only a phone number, the reply-to is no-reply@shopify.com, so you cannot reply by email at all.

For the theme form, I don’t rely on documentation for reply behavior. I send a test and click Reply, which is step 4 in the checklist below. The same goes for any third-party contact form app: its notification settings are its own, so run the same test.

Fix the sender email before you set up forwarding

Forwarding only works if the mail reaches the inbox you are forwarding from. Two things to check:

• Authentication. A sender address on a third-party domain needs authentication to avoid being flagged as spam. Shopify notes that Gmail and Yahoo require domain authentication and a DMARC record.
• The shopifyemail.com rewrite. If the sender email is on a third-party domain and authentication records aren’t set up, the sender address is rewritten to store+123@shopifyemail.com. If your messages show a strange sender, this is the first thing to look at.

One more trap: if you use Shopify-hosted email forwarding for your custom domain (no third-party email host), you can’t reply to customer email addresses from your custom domain address. For a real support workflow, use a mailbox you can send from.

Gmail: forward only contact form emails

Gmail’s default is too broad. Automatic forwarding sends all your Gmail messages to the new address. You want a filter instead, so only contact form mail leaves the inbox.

1. Add your helpdesk address as a forwarding address in Gmail settings.
2. Open the confirmation message that Gmail sends to the helpdesk address and click the verification link.
3. Leave “forward a copy of all incoming mail” off. Per Google, to forward only some messages, turn off forwarding-all and create a filter.
4. Create a filter that matches your contact form emails and set its action to forward to the helpdesk address.

For step 4, Shopify says you can’t change the subject line of contact form emails. That is useful: the subject is stable, so it makes a reliable filter. Send yourself one test submission, read the exact subject and sender on the email that arrives, and build the filter from those. The search string looks like this (example format, fill in your own values):

from:[sender address shown on your test email] subject:“[exact subject from your test]”

Two Gmail details that catch people:

• Each forwarding destination needs its own filter. Forwarding to two addresses means two filters.
• A forwarding filter only affects new messages. Your old test email sitting in the inbox will not forward, so send a fresh one each time you change the filter.

For Gmail, step 5 of the checklist below is the only way to know what reply address the helpdesk copy carries. If it shows your own address, follow your helpdesk’s own forwarding instructions.

Outlook: “Redirect to” is the fix for replies going to yourself

This is the part most forum threads miss. In Outlook (new Outlook, Outlook on the web, Outlook.com), a rule can either forward or redirect, and the difference affects who a reply goes to.

Microsoft’s documentation says forwarded messages appear to be forwarded from you, and redirected messages appear to come from the original sender.

So with “Forward to”, the helpdesk sees a message that appears to come from you, and a reply can end up back in your own inbox. That is the “reply goes to myself” problem. With “Redirect to”, the message appears to come from the original sender instead, which is the better starting point for a helpdesk.

Set up the rule like this:

1. Create an inbox rule with a condition on the sender or subject (use the subject from your test email).
2. Set the action to Redirect to your helpdesk address.
3. Save, then send a fresh test.

Keep in mind that the original sender of a theme contact form email may be Shopify’s system, not your customer. Whether the customer’s address ends up as the reply target depends on the email’s reply-to and on how your helpdesk handles it. The test in step 4 and step 5 below tells you.

Two limits to know about:

• If your mailbox is over its size limit, forwarding rules may not work.
• The number of addresses a rule can send to may be limited, depending on your account settings.

Microsoft 365 business: external forwarding may be blocked

If your support address lives on a Microsoft 365 business plan, your rule may be silently disabled. Microsoft says external forwarding was switched off in 2021 for new organizations and for existing organizations that weren’t actively using the Automatic setting. Tenants that were already using it may still allow forwarding, so behavior varies by organization.

When it is off, inbox rules that redirect to external addresses are disabled. Forwarding between internal users is not affected.

The giveaway is a bounce containing this error: 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. If you see it, your admin has to allow external forwarding.

Don’t forward the spam, but don’t lose real messages either

Shopify runs spam filtering on the message body field. Flagged submissions are still delivered: the email is sent with a [SPAM] prefix in its subject, and you receive all contact form submissions, including those flagged as spam.

Shopify suggests you can create an email filter to set aside emails with a subject that contains [SPAM]. Do that before your forwarding rule, so spam does not flood your helpdesk. Set aside, not delete: skim that folder now and then in case a real customer got flagged.

Test checklist (do all six)

1. Confirm the sender email. Open Settings > Notifications and note the sender email address. That is the inbox that must have the forwarding rule.
2. Submit the real contact form on your live store, from an email address you control that is not the sender email. Use something like “Test 1 [date]” in the message.
3. Find the email in the sender email inbox. Note the exact subject and the sender shown. Check whether it shows a shopifyemail.com address.
4. Click Reply on that message and read the To field before typing anything. Is it the test customer address, or your own?
5. Check the helpdesk copy. Did the forwarded message arrive? Click Reply there and read the To field again. This is the check that proves the “reply goes to myself” problem is fixed or not.
6. Send a second test after any rule change (Gmail filters only affect new mail). Also try to trigger the spam flag, for example with a message that is just a pile of links. Nothing guaranteed will get flagged, so if it doesn’t, test your [SPAM] filter by sending yourself an email with [SPAM] at the start of the subject.

If step 4 or 5 shows your own address, switch the rule type (Redirect in Outlook), or ask your helpdesk how it sets the reply address for forwarded mail.

What to do once the mail is landing

Forwarding is only the first half. The messages still need answers, and most contact form emails are order questions: where is it, can I change the address, what is your return policy.

LzyReply works from exactly this setup. You forward your support address to it (Gmail, Outlook, Shopify’s inbox, or any provider that can forward), and for each email it looks up the customer’s Shopify order and drafts a reply in your brand voice. You review and approve by default. It handles email only, and it does not issue refunds or cancel orders.

If you are still deciding what kind of tool you need, start with what a Shopify helpdesk is. If you run the store alone, support for solo sellers covers how to keep it manageable.