Integration
Why are my ServiceM8 emails not sending or not arriving?
Most ServiceM8 emails that go missing were sent and then filtered. Gmail requires every sender to authenticate its domain with SPF or DKIM, and ServiceM8 quietly falls back to its own mail system if your custom SMTP login fails. Authenticate your domain, fix the SMTP login, check the address, then prove delivery from the job diary.
Last checked 25 Sep 2026 against the sources listed at the end of this page.
Symptom: You send a quote, invoice or booking confirmation from a ServiceM8 job, the job diary shows it went, and the customer says it never arrived or found it in junk.
Causes, most common first
Your From address uses your own domain, but that domain has not authorised ServiceM8 to send for it. Receiving servers treat the message as unauthenticated and file it as spam or reject it.
Check: Open a ServiceM8 email you sent to a Gmail address, choose Show original, and look at the SPF, DKIM and DMARC lines. Anything other than PASS for your domain is the problem.
Fix: Run Settings, ServiceM8 Add-ons, Website and Email, Connect, and choose Use a domain I already own (email sending only). Add the five DNS records it shows, click Re-check DNS and wait for DNS verified.
A custom SMTP server is set up but its login no longer works (changed password, Gmail without an app password, or Microsoft 365 with SMTP AUTH switched off). ServiceM8 does not stop sending: it falls back to its own mail system, so mail now leaves from a server your domain never approved.
Check: In Settings, Preferences, Email Settings, confirm the SMTP host and login. If you use Microsoft 365, ask your admin whether security defaults are on, because that disables SMTP AUTH.
Fix: For Gmail, create an app password (it needs 2-Step Verification) and use it in the SMTP settings. For Microsoft 365, use the Office 365 Integration add-on instead of SMTP. Then send a test to an outside address.
The email is sitting in the customer's junk folder or their company's quarantine, usually because the message looks unexpected or promotional.
Check: Ask the customer to search junk and any quarantine for your business name. Business customers on Microsoft 365 may need their IT contact to look.
Fix: Keep job emails factual and about the job, since ServiceM8's own guidance warns that any marketing content can make a whole message promotional. Ask regular customers to add your sending address to their contacts.
The address on the client card or job contact is wrong, old or mistyped, so the message bounced or went to someone else.
Check: Open the client card and the job contact and read the email address letter by letter. Look in the sending mailbox (Office 365 Sent Items or your SMTP mailbox) for a bounce notice.
Fix: Correct the address on the client card and the job contact, then resend from the job. Update the billing contact too, as invoices often go there.
It was sent from a different address than you expected. With the Office 365 Integration, every user's email goes out from the one connected mailbox, and with custom SMTP the From address is whatever the SMTP settings say.
Check: Look at the From address on a test email you send to yourself.
Fix: Connect a shared company mailbox (for example accounts@ or office@) rather than one staff member's, so replies and bounces land where the office sees them.
Nothing was sent. The email was drafted but not sent, or an automation did not fire.
Check: Open the job diary. A sent email is saved there with its attachments. If it is not in the diary, it did not go.
Fix: Send it again from the job's New Email window using the right template and Smart Attachment, and check your automation settings if it was meant to go automatically.
Sent is not the same as delivered
ServiceM8 saves every email it sends in the job diary, so the diary is your proof that the message left. It is not proof that it reached the inbox. Between the two sit the receiving mail server's checks: does the sending server have permission to send for your domain, does the message look like spam, does the address exist. A message can fail any of those without ServiceM8 ever knowing.
That is why "had the same problem for six months" is a common story. Nothing in ServiceM8 looks broken. Customers just quietly stop receiving quotes, and the office assumes they are ignoring them.
Why your own domain makes it worse before it makes it better
Sending from you@yourbusiness.com.au looks more professional than a generic address, but only if your domain says ServiceM8 may send for it. Since February 2024, Gmail requires every sender to set up SPF or DKIM for the sending domain, and larger senders also need DMARC. If your domain publishes a DMARC policy and ServiceM8 is not authorised, the receiving server is being told to distrust exactly those emails.
ServiceM8 gives you two ways to do this properly. The Website and Email add-on can authenticate a domain you already own for sending only: you add five DNS records, and your website and inbox stay where they are. Or you send through your own mailbox with the Office 365 Integration or a custom SMTP server, so the mail leaves from a server your domain already trusts.
How to prove an email was delivered
Start with the job diary: it shows what was sent, when, and with which attachments. If you send through Microsoft 365, your admin can run a message trace in the Exchange admin centre, which searches up to 90 days of mail and shows whether the recipient's server accepted it. If you send through Office 365, the email is also in your Sent Items.
If the trace says delivered and the customer still cannot find it, the problem is on their side: junk, quarantine or a mail rule. That is a conversation with their IT contact, not a ServiceM8 setting.
Sources
- With the Custom SMTP add-on, emails are sent via your own mail server. If the SMTP login details are invalid, email continues to work but is delivered via ServiceM8's normal email system rather than your SMTP server. ServiceM8 Help Center, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- The Website and Email add-on can authenticate a domain you already own for sending only; you add five DNS records shown on Authorise ServiceM8 to Send and click Re-check DNS until the wizard shows DNS verified. Existing website and receiving email records stay in place. ServiceM8 Help Center, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- With the Office 365 Integration, email is delivered from your real address and appears in Sent Items, and all email sent from any user is delivered from the connected account's address, so ServiceM8 recommends a company wide address. ServiceM8 Help Center, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- Since 1 February 2024, all senders to Gmail accounts must set up SPF or DKIM for their sending domains; senders of more than 5,000 messages a day must set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Google Workspace Admin Help, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- Google app passwords can only be used with accounts that have 2-Step Verification turned on. Google Account Help, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- If security defaults are enabled in a Microsoft 365 organisation, SMTP AUTH is already disabled in Exchange Online. Microsoft Learn, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- Exchange Online message trace can query up to 90 days of data, 10 days at a time for instant summary reports. Microsoft Learn, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- ServiceM8 advises that including any marketing element can make an otherwise transactional message promotional, and that ServiceM8 is not designed for bulk email marketing. ServiceM8 Help Center, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- Emails sent from a job are saved in the job diary for future reference, and with Two Way Email customer replies are added to the job diary and forwarded to your email address. ServiceM8 Help Center, checked 25 Sep 2026.