> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trysight.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Email Forwarding for the Outreach Agent

> Forward collab requests, sponsorship pitches, and roundup invites to the Outreach Agent — including how to set up a friendly vanity address like seo@yourdomain.com.

## Overview

Every site licensed for the Outreach Agent gets a unique inbound email address — something like `forward+ABC123XYZ@mail-sightai.com` — that funnels mail into your **Inbox**. You can find it during setup at the top of the Inbox left pane, and any time under **Inbox → Settings → Inbox → Forward emails to your agent**.

Three patterns flow into the same bucket, and **all three appear in the Inbox**:

* **Forwarded pitches.** A collab pitch lands in your normal inbox; you (or a teammate on a verified email) forward it to the bucket. The agent looks past the "Begin forwarded message" envelope, identifies the *original* prospect, drafts a reply, and (in autonomous mode) sends it to them — not to you.
* **Forwarded non-pitches.** A teammate forwards something that *isn't* a backlink/listicle pitch — an auto-reply, a newsletter, a sales email, a customer message. We still store it in your Inbox so you don't lose visibility. If **Auto-handle forwarded and inbound emails** is on, the agent triages it and only replies when it looks like a real outreach conversation; otherwise it waits for you.
* **Direct inbound.** A prospect (or anyone) emails the bucket address — or a vanity address that forwards to it — directly. The message lands in the Inbox so you can see it. If auto-handle is on, the agent can triage and reply; if it's off, click **Have the agent take this over** when you want the agent involved.

In every case the prospect never sees the inbound bucket address. When you or the agent reply, the response goes out from your verified outbound domain.

## Use a friendly vanity address

The default forward address is intentionally long and random because it doubles as authentication: only mail received at *your* address creates opportunities for *your* site. That's great for security but awkward to share publicly.

The fix is to set up a vanity address on a domain you control that auto-forwards into the bucket.

**Example:** Set `seo@trysight.ai` to forward to `forward+ABC123XYZ@mail-sightai.com`. Now you can list `seo@trysight.ai` on your site, in your email signature, in PR pitches, or on a "work with us" page — every reply lands in the agent's inbox automatically.

The vanity address can be anything you want — `seo@`, `partnerships@`, `outreach@`, `links@`, `pr@`. You can wire up multiple vanity addresses to the same bucket if you want different "personalities" for different campaigns.

<Tip>
  This intake bucket is **separate** from the Reply-To mailbox you configure during [Outreach Email Setup](/ai-visibility/outreach-reply-tracking). That setup expects a real personal mailbox on your **dedicated outreach domain** (e.g. `john.smith@trysightai.com` when your real brand site is `trysight.ai`) so replies from prospects land in your own inbox first. The vanity address described here is just a forwarder pointed at this intake bucket — there's no mailbox behind it, and it doesn't have to live on your outreach domain. The two flows can coexist; pick whichever (or both) match how you want pitches and replies to surface.
</Tip>

## How to set it up by provider

### Google Workspace

The simplest path uses an alias plus a forwarding filter:

1. In **Admin** → **Users**, open the mailbox you want to host the vanity address on (or pick a generic shared mailbox), and add `seo@yourdomain.com` as an **Alias**.
2. Sign in as that user, open **Gmail → Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP**, and add the inbound address (`forward+...@mail-sightai.com`) as a **Forwarding address**. Google will email a verification code to the inbound address — open the resulting conversation in your Sight AI Inbox to grab the code (or just click the verify link inside it) and confirm.
3. Open **Settings → Filters and Blocked Addresses → Create a new filter**. In **To**, enter `seo@yourdomain.com`. Click **Create filter**, then check **Forward it to** and pick the inbound address.

For a vanity address with no real Gmail mailbox behind it, use a **Group** (Admin → Groups) addressed `seo@yourdomain.com` with the inbound address as its only member. Set the group's posting permissions to **Anyone on the web** so external prospects can email it.

### Microsoft 365 / Outlook

Two common shapes:

* **Mailbox + transport rule.** Add `seo@yourdomain.com` as an alias on an existing mailbox, then in **Exchange Admin Center → Mail flow → Rules** create a rule: *If the recipient is `seo@yourdomain.com`, redirect the message to `forward+...@mail-sightai.com`*.
* **Mail-enabled distribution group.** In the Microsoft 365 Admin Center create a distribution group with the address `seo@yourdomain.com` and add the inbound bucket as the only member. Allow external senders.

### Cloudflare Email Routing (free, no mailbox required)

If you don't host email at all, Cloudflare's free Email Routing is the easiest option:

1. In your Cloudflare dashboard, open the zone for `yourdomain.com` and go to **Email → Email Routing**.
2. Enable Email Routing and accept the MX record changes Cloudflare proposes.
3. Under **Destination addresses**, add the inbound address from **Inbox → Settings → Inbox → Forward emails to your agent**. Cloudflare will email a verification link to it — open the resulting conversation in your Sight AI Inbox to click through.
4. Under **Custom addresses**, create a route: **Custom address** `seo@yourdomain.com` → **Action** `Send to` → the inbound address.

### Zoho, Fastmail, cPanel, and other generic providers

Most providers support a basic forwarder under **Email Forwarders**, **Aliases**, or similar:

1. **Source:** `seo@yourdomain.com`
2. **Destination:** the inbound address from **Inbox → Settings → Inbox → Forward emails to your agent**
3. Save, then send a test email to the vanity address from a verified team-member inbox to confirm it lands in your Inbox tab.

If your provider supports **SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme)**, leave it on — it keeps the original sender's domain intact for SPF on the forward. Most modern providers do this automatically.

## What lands in the Inbox vs. what the agent acts on

The two questions are separate:

* **Storage** — does the message show up in your Inbox?
* **Action** — does the agent auto-reply?

Storage is generous on purpose: you should see every authenticated email that hit your bucket address, even if it isn't a pitch the agent should handle. Action is conservative: the agent only auto-drafts and sends when the message looks like a real outreach pitch *and* the immediate sender is a verified team member. For everything else, the row sits in the Inbox flagged **Needs you** with a one-click **Have the agent take this over** button.

| Scenario                                                               | Lands in Inbox | Agent auto-replies           |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------- | ---------------------------- |
| Verified team member forwards a real pitch                             | Yes            | Yes                          |
| Verified team member forwards an auto-reply / newsletter / sales email | Yes            | No (use Take over to opt in) |
| External sender (e.g. a prospect) emails the bucket directly           | Yes            | No (use Take over to opt in) |
| Mail that fails SPF *and* DKIM                                         | No             | —                            |
| Mail to a rotated / unknown bucket address                             | No             | —                            |

<Note>
  If you've completed [Outreach Email Setup](/ai-visibility/outreach-reply-tracking), matched replies are threaded back to their existing Sight AI conversations first. New forwarded or direct inbound mail that doesn't match an existing conversation still lands in the Inbox pipeline, subject to the safeguards below and your **Auto-handle forwarded and inbound emails** setting.
</Note>

## Limits and safeguards

* **Authentication required.** Mail that fails both SPF and DKIM is dropped at the door — we don't store anything we can't authenticate to a real sending domain.
* **500 inbound messages per site per day** are persisted to your Inbox. This is a high-water cap so a misconfigured forwarding rule or a flood of newsletters can't bloat your storage. Legitimate volume never approaches it; contact support if you do hit it.
* **100 agent extractions per site per day.** Forwards from a verified team member that the agent acts on (the "real pitch" path above) are capped separately. Once the day's extraction budget is spent, additional forwards still land in the Inbox but the agent waits until tomorrow to act unless you click **Have the agent take this over** manually.
* **Suppressions still apply.** When the agent does send a reply, the suppression list is checked first. If the original sender is suppressed, no reply goes out — the conversation is still visible in your Inbox.
* **One conversation per pitch.** Each forwarded pitch becomes exactly one thread in the Inbox; the agent never fans out a single forward into multiple opportunities.

## Need to send a reply yourself?

Every conversation in the Inbox supports a manual reply, including the ones the agent stored without acting on. Click into the thread, type into the composer (or hit **Draft with AI** to seed a first draft based on the conversation history), and **Send reply**. The reply goes out from your verified outbound domain just like an agent reply, and the agent stays paused on that thread until you turn it back on.

## Rotating the inbound address

If you suspect the inbound address has leaked (you posted it in a forum, a contractor with access left, etc.), click **Rotate** on the **Forward emails to your agent** card in **Inbox → Settings → Inbox**. A new address is generated and the old one stops accepting mail immediately — there's no grace period.

After rotating, **update your vanity-address forwarding rule** to point at the new bucket. Otherwise mail to `seo@yourdomain.com` will start bouncing.

You can rotate as often as you like; the agent and existing opportunities are unaffected.

## Troubleshooting

**Forwards aren't showing up in the Inbox.**

* Confirm you're using the inbound address shown in the dashboard *today* — if you've rotated, the old address stops accepting mail.
* Check the **All** filter in the Inbox left pane, not just **Needs you**. Forwards land in different filters depending on the sender and content.
* Confirm the original mail passed SPF or DKIM at your forwarding hop. Mail that fails both is dropped at the door.
* Check that you haven't hit the 500/day storage cap for the site.

**The agent isn't auto-replying to a forward I sent.**

Auto-reply only fires when (a) the forwarder is a verified team member *and* (b) the message looks like a real backlink, listicle, or collab pitch. For everything else the conversation lands in the **Needs you** filter with a **Have the agent take this over** button — click that to draft and send an agent reply on demand.

**The agent is replying to me, not to the prospect.**

This almost always means the forward stripped the original headers. Some clients (notably mobile Outlook) only quote the body and lose the `From:` of the original message. Two fixes:

* Forward as an attachment (the original `.eml`) instead of inline. Most desktop clients support this under **Forward as Attachment**.
* Use a server-side forward (Cloudflare Email Routing, Google Workspace routing rule, an Exchange transport rule) instead of clicking Forward in your client. Server-side forwards preserve the original headers cleanly.

**Cloudflare or Google asked me to verify the destination address.**

The verification email lands in your Sight AI Inbox as a new conversation. Open it to grab the verification link or code. (The Outreach Agent doesn't auto-click links in stored conversations, so this is safe.)

**Conversation created but no draft reply.**

This is expected when the forwarder isn't a verified team member, when the body was mostly quoted text from a long thread, or when the agent judged the message non-actionable (auto-reply, newsletter, sales email). The conversation is still created so you don't lose the lead. Click **Draft with AI** in the composer to seed a draft you can edit, or click **Have the agent take this over** to put the agent on the thread.

## Related

* [Outreach Inbox](/ai-visibility/outreach-inbox) — the three-pane Inbox UI: filters, manual replies, AI drafts, take-over, retry.
* [Outreach Opportunities](/ai-visibility/outreach-opportunities) — the broader Outreach Agent surface, including author email lookup and pitch drafting.
* [Outreach Email Setup](/ai-visibility/outreach-reply-tracking) — end-to-end setup: dedicated outreach domain, DNS records, inbox setup, and the forwarding relay that routes replies to your real mailbox while keeping the agent in the loop.
* [Automations overview](/automations/overview) — how all the autonomous agents fit together.