Emails you send from Zoho CRM are always visible to every user with access to the record, whatever your email privacy setting. The Private, Public and Custom settings only apply to emails you receive from customers. To keep a conversation confidential, set your emails to Private and send confidential emails from your email client, not from CRM.

Applies to: Zoho CRM – All clients

Background

When you link your email to CRM through IMAP, all your emails with an account, contact or lead are linked to their CRM record. The email privacy settings are in Settings, under Channels > Email, where you configure your email server.

Store sent messages on the server

Zoho CRM sends emails through its own server, not your email server. The emails still show your correct details and reply address, so you can send emails from CRM even if your email server isn't linked. If you tick Store sent messages on the server, every message sent from CRM is also stored in the Sent Items folder on your email server. If your sent messages appear twice on your email server, untick this box.

Privacy settings

• Private: only you can see the emails you receive from the customer. Other users with access to the contact record can't see them.
• Public: all emails received from the contact are visible to every user with access to the contact record.
• Custom: you choose on each record whether its emails are shared or kept private. The setting applies to all emails on that record; you can't choose individual emails.

Why emails sent from CRM are always public

Important: All emails sent from CRM are public. Any user with access to the contact record can see them.

The Private, Public and Custom settings only apply to emails you receive from your customer. This is because CRM sends emails through its own email service, not through your email server (which is why there is a checkbox to store sent messages in your Sent Items folder).

We have raised a feature request with Zoho, because we see this as a security issue. For example, if you have a confidential email thread with a customer, every email you send from CRM is shared with anyone who can access that record, whatever the privacy setting. Because your reply contains all the earlier messages in the thread, you may expose sensitive data.

Workaround

Until Zoho addresses this in a feature update:

1. Set your emails to Private in CRM.
2. Don't send confidential emails from CRM. Send them from your email client (for example, Outlook) instead.

The email you send from your email client is still recorded against the contact in Zoho CRM. Because it wasn't sent from CRM, the Private or Public setting in your IMAP configuration applies.