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How It Works

When you send sequence emails through Orbit AI, replies go directly to your regular inbox (Gmail, Outlook, etc.). To detect those replies automatically, you set up a forwarding rule that sends a copy of incoming emails to a unique Orbit AI address. This lets us match replies against sent sequence emails and unenroll contacts who respond.
Key points:
  • Your contacts see your real email address — nothing changes for them
  • Replies still land in your inbox as normal
  • The forwarding is a copy — your original emails are not affected
  • Reply tracking is optional — sequences work without it, but contacts won’t be auto-unenrolled on reply

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Setup Instructions

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Step 1: Find Your Forwarding Address

  1. Go to Settings → Email & Calendar in your Orbit AI dashboard
  2. Scroll to the Reply Tracking section
  3. You’ll see a unique forwarding address for each connected email account
  4. Click the copy button to copy the address

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Step 2: Add the Address in Gmail

  1. Open Gmail and click the gear icon → See all settings
  2. Go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab
  3. Click Add a forwarding address
  4. Paste your Orbit AI forwarding address and click Next
Gmail will send a confirmation email to your Orbit AI address. You don’t need to find this email yourself — Orbit AI receives it automatically and the next step will appear in your settings.

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Step 3: Confirm Forwarding

Once Orbit AI receives Gmail’s confirmation email, the Reply Tracking section will update to “Pending confirmation” status with two steps:
  1. Click the Confirm Forwarding button — this opens Gmail’s confirmation page in a new tab where you approve the forwarding
  2. Click the Gmail Forwarding Settings link to go back to Gmail’s forwarding settings, then:
    • Select “Forward a copy of incoming mail to” your Orbit AI address
    • Choose “keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox” from the dropdown
    • Click Save Changes
Make sure to select “keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox” so your emails are not deleted after forwarding.
After completing these steps, the status will automatically update to “Active” once we receive the first forwarded email. This usually happens within a few minutes. You’ll also see the status on the Settings tab of each sequence — a green “Active” badge appears next to “Reply tracking” when the sender’s forwarding is configured.

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Alternative: Set Up Forwarding in Outlook

  1. Open Outlook and go to Settings (gear icon)
  2. Go to Mail → Forwarding
  3. Check Enable forwarding
  4. Paste your Orbit AI forwarding address
  5. Make sure Keep a copy of forwarded messages is checked
  6. Click Save

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Removing Reply Tracking

To stop reply tracking for an email account:
  1. Go to Settings → Email & Calendar and scroll to Reply Tracking
  2. Click the Remove button next to the account
  3. Open your Gmail forwarding settings and remove the forwarding rule or set it back to “Disable forwarding”
Removing reply tracking in Orbit AI does not automatically remove the forwarding rule in Gmail — make sure to disable it in both places.

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How Reply Detection Works

When a contact replies to a sequence email:
  1. The reply arrives in your inbox (e.g., Gmail)
  2. Gmail forwards a copy to your Orbit AI forwarding address
  3. Orbit AI reads the email’s In-Reply-To and References headers — these are standard email headers that identify which message is being replied to
  4. We match those header values against the Message-ID we stored when the sequence email was originally sent
  5. We verify that the sender’s email address matches the contact enrolled in the sequence
  6. If both checks pass, the contact’s step execution is marked as “replied”
  7. If “Email reply received” is enabled in the sequence’s exit criteria, the contact is automatically unenrolled
Replies that don’t match any sent sequence email — or where the sender doesn’t match the enrolled contact — are silently discarded.

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Privacy & Security

We take a strict approach to how forwarded emails are handled:
  • No email content is stored. We read the In-Reply-To and References headers and the sender’s email address from forwarded emails. The email subject, body, and attachments are never saved to our database.
  • Sender verification. We check that the sender’s email address matches the contact enrolled in the sequence. This prevents misattributed replies and ensures only genuine replies from your contacts are processed.
  • Non-sequence emails are discarded immediately. If a forwarded email doesn’t match a sent sequence email, it’s ignored — no logging, no storage.
  • Your forwarding address is unique. Each connected email account gets its own forwarding address, scoped to your user account.
  • Team-scoped matching. Reply matching is restricted to sequences within your team. Forwarded emails can never interact with data from other teams.

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FAQ

No. Your contacts see your real email address (e.g., [email protected]) as the sender and reply-to address. The forwarding happens on your side and is invisible to them.
Yes. Gmail/Outlook keeps a copy in your inbox. The forwarding only sends a copy to Orbit AI — it does not redirect or delete your emails.
Sequences will still work normally — emails are sent, opened, and clicked as usual. The only difference is that contacts won’t be automatically unenrolled when they reply. You can still manually unenroll them.
We read two things: the email threading headers (In-Reply-To and References) to identify which message is being replied to, and the sender’s email address to verify it matches the enrolled contact. We match the threading headers against the Message-IDs of emails we sent through your sequences. The email subject, body, and attachments are never stored.
Yes. Each connected email account has its own unique forwarding address. Set up forwarding separately for each account you use to send sequences.