Associated Email vs From Email

The "Associated Email" and "From Email" fields in the Folder Setup of ReplyManager are often confused as being one in the same. They do, in fact, perform quite different functions. In this post, we hope to clear all that up and give you some insight into how best to use these versatile features.

What is the Associated email address for a folder and how is it used?

The “Associated email” address is the email the folder will be receiving, in other words a routing feature for incoming email. For example, in the maintenance>folder setup, if support@yourcompany.com is entered as the Associated Email address for the Support folder, then all incoming email with a "To" of support@yourcompany.com will automatically route to the Support folder.  You can specify all possible variants of an incoming email address so that it may perform a match, by selecting Regular Expression. You must add an associated email if you want to use the Forward Incoming Email, Distribution Email List and Autoresponder functions

. These features apply only to email received from a POP3 or IMAP account.

For eBay Accounts:  eBay email is routed to a folder by a Rule or by designating a folder to "force" the email into the folder. See Account Setup at Maintenance>Accounts for details. The associated email routing feature DOES NOT apply to messages coming from the eBay API.

What is the From email address for a folder and when should that be used?

The "From email" address is the address your recipients will see on the email reply. One or more “from" email addresses can be assigned to a folder when replying to customer email. Go to Maintenance>Folders, select a folder, enter a valid "From Email for Replies". You may want your customer to respond to a different email address than was originally used so as to personalize or to sort to different departments. 
If you do not include an Associated Email and plan to send email from this folder, you must enter a FROM address in order to send replies (users won't see the Reply button at all).

For eBay Accounts:  eBay does not always require a From email address, but it is required by our ReplyManager program and recommended to use a valid email address (preferably the address registered with eBay for that particular eBay store). 

See some additional information and setup in Email Routing and Assigning Multiple From Email Addresses.