Hey ​@Melinda Brown 👋 Jacques here from Intercom Support. I hope all is well today!

When a user replies to an email notification from Intercom Messenger, the email may be duplicated due to several factors related to how email threading works in Intercom.

Email Threading Mechanism

1. Email Headers: Intercom uses specific email headers (Message-ID, In-Reply-To, and References) to determine if an email should be threaded into an existing conversation. If these headers are stripped or altered by the email client, Intercom may not be able to thread the reply correctly, leading to duplication.

2. Changes in Recipients: If a user replies to an email and removes one or more recipients from the CC field, their reply will create a new conversation instead of threading into the existing one. For example, if Alice emails support@example.com and CCs Bob and Carol, and Bob replies but removes Carol from CC, this will result in a new conversation being created.

3. External Senders: If an external sender replies to an email that references a previous conversation, their reply may also be threaded into the existing conversation, but if they are not recognised as a participant, it could lead to confusion and potential duplication.

Limitations and Considerations

• Email Client Behaviour: Different email clients have varying behaviours regarding threading. Some may split emails into new threads based on subject line changes or other criteria, which can contribute to the issue of duplicated emails.

• Configuration Settings: Users can configure their email settings in Intercom to control whether conversation history is included in replies. If conversation history is not included, it may affect how replies are threaded and perceived by users.

So in summary, the duplication of emails when replying to notifications from Intercom Messenger can occur due to issues with email headers, changes in recipients, and the behaviour of different email clients.

If you require more in depth troubleshooting for your particular case, you can reach out to our support team so they can dig deeper into the issue for you! Hope this helps! :)

Hi Jacques,

Thank you for your response and for explaining how the email threading works in Intercom.  I have reviewed all the scenarios you provided. Unfortunately, none of these apply in our situation. We have contacted support on this issue several weeks ago. Unfortunately,  we still don't have a resolution. We want to expand our account to other users and teams. However, we need this corrected first. I was reaching out in this forum, in hopes of finding a user who has found a solution to this issue. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Have you done some research with the customer’s or in your testing on how the users are responding to the support thread? And what do you mean by duplicating? Do you mean you’re getting two whole separate conversations in the Intercom Inbox, both with the same email? Or you just get a duplicate conversation created with the response, and the original conversation doesn’t get the same message?

Hi Trevor,

Yes, I have! When I or a user responds to the email notifications from email instead of the Messenger the response comes in twice, as two different line items. I have examples. 

I understand your frustration. Since support hasn’t resolved the issue yet, one possible workaround is to test with a temp mail account to see if the problem persists across different users. This can help identify if the issue is account-specific or system-wide. Many teams use this method before expanding to other users. Hopefully, another Intercom user here can share a tested solution that worked for them.

Hi,

Thank you for your response. I have tested the issue and replicated the issue from my email account as well as  receiving duplicate emails from two different clients. There are two scenarios.

1. The user emails our support email from their email provider. Two different conversations are generated.
2. The user responds to an email notification from an Intercom ticket. The response is duplicated within the conversation trail.