Email Features
Email behaves differently from WhatsApp, Instagram and Web Chat. It's slower, it has no "online" state, and a mail client can't show tappable buttons. This page covers what that means in practice.
Sending Messages
Text
| Feature | Supported | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Message length | Unlimited | No character cap |
| Formatting | Yes | Bold, links and lists render as HTML |
| Plain-text alternative | Yes | Every email is sent as both HTML and plain text |
| Emojis | Yes | Used sparingly — see writing style |
One Email In, One Email Out
On chat channels a long answer is split into several bubbles. On email it never is — an inbound email gets exactly one reply, however long the answer needs to be.
Subject Lines
The subject is taken from the thread, with exactly one Re: prefix. Stacked prefixes from other mail clients (Re: RE: Re[2]:, and the Arabic رد:) are collapsed to one.
The agent never writes a subject of its own.
Attachments
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Total attachment size per email | 20 MB |
Anything above the limit isn't dropped — it's turned into a secure download link in the body of the email, so the customer still receives the file.
Locations
Email has no map message, so a shared place is sent as a Google Maps link with its name — automatically, whenever your agent sends a location (see Location Messages).
Receiving Messages
Supported Incoming Content
| Content | Supported | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Plain-text email | Yes | |
| HTML email | Yes | Converted to text for the agent |
| Attachments | Yes | See limits below |
| Inline images | Yes | Signature logos are ignored, not treated as attachments |
| Replies in an existing thread | Yes | Matched back to the same conversation |
Incoming Attachment Limits
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Maximum size per file | 20 MB |
| Maximum total per email | 25 MB |
| Maximum number of files | 10 |
When a file is rejected, the reason is recorded and passed to the agent, so it can tell the customer what it couldn't open rather than ignoring the attachment silently. Your team can still see the original email either way.
Threading
A customer's reply lands back in the same conversation, not a new one. Three mechanisms make that work, in order of reliability:
| Mechanism | What it survives |
|---|---|
| A signed tag in the Reply-To address | Subject edits, and clients that drop threading headers |
In-Reply-To and References headers | Standard threading, honoured by every mail client |
| Normalised subject | A last resort when both of the above are missing |
Every other channel closes a session after 24 hours. Email keeps a thread reopenable for 30 days — a customer replying three weeks later is still the same conversation, with all its history.
Automatic Replies Are Never Answered
Out-of-office replies, delivery failures and mailing-list mail are stored and visible to your team, but the AI stays silent. Answering them creates mail loops.
The AI does not reply when the incoming email is:
- An auto-reply or out-of-office message
- A bounce or delivery failure notification
- Mailing-list or bulk mail
- From an unattended sender —
no-reply@,donotreply@,mailer-daemon@,postmaster@ - Flagged as spam or as carrying a virus
An auto-responder usually sends from a different address than the person you wrote to, so Orki sees a new sender and creates a new conversation for it. It sits there unanswered — that's expected. Resolve it and move on.
What Email Doesn't Support
| Feature | Status | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Tappable option buttons | No | A mail client can't send a reply back to a button |
| Product carousels | No | No email equivalent — products are described in text instead |
| Product cards | No | Same |
| OTP send and verify | No | Backed by WhatsApp templates |
| Follow-up reminders | No | A reminder would arrive as a separate unsolicited email |
| Instagram post lookup | No | Instagram-only |
| Typing indicator | No | Nothing to show it in |
| Read receipts | No | Not reliable in email |
Still Available on Email
Handover to a human, resolving a conversation, knowledge-base search, updating customer details, product search and sending media all work normally.
Handover Is Silent
When the agent hands a conversation to your team, everything happens as usual — the chat moves to Needs Attention, the history is preserved and your team is notified. The customer simply doesn't get an "an agent will be with you shortly" email. Nor do they get a "still there?" nudge later.
Each of those would be a separate unsolicited email arriving seconds after a real reply, which reads as spam.
How the Agent Writes on Email
Orki adjusts the agent's writing style for the channel. On email it:
- Writes professionally rather than chat-casual
- Answers the whole question in one reply, instead of asking a follow-up and waiting
- Doesn't quote the previous message back — the customer's mail client already threads it
- Doesn't add its own sign-off, because your signature is appended automatically
Platform Comparison
| Feature | Web Chat | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text messages | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Message length limit | 4096 | 1000 | None | None |
| Images/Videos | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Documents | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Long replies split into several messages | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Tappable options | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Carousels | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Location | Map pin | Maps link | Map | Maps link |
| Typing indicators | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Read receipts | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Subject line | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes |
| Session window | 24 hours | 24 hours | None | 30 days |
| Template messages | Yes | No | N/A | No |
Next Steps
- Email Setup - Connect an inbox and verify your domain
- Chats - See incoming email conversations
- Built-in Tools - What your agent can do out of the box