How to Migrate from Freshdesk to Gorgias

Why ecommerce teams make the Freshdesk-to-Gorgias move

Freshdesk is a capable general-purpose help desk. Gorgias is a help desk built specifically for ecommerce, and that difference is the whole reason for the migration. Gorgias connects natively to Shopify (and BigCommerce, Magento, and others), so an agent sees the customer's order history, fulfillment status, and can trigger a refund or cancel from inside the ticket. The trade-off is that Gorgias thinks in terms of Rules and Macros rather than Freshdesk's automations and canned responses, and it uses Views instead of ticket lists — so the mental model, not just the data, is changing under you.

Before you touch a migration tool, audit what you actually run in Freshdesk: every active automation rule, every SLA policy, every macro, your business hours, and each third-party integration. That inventory becomes your rebuild checklist on the Gorgias side, and most teams underestimate how long it is.

Step 1: Decide between native import and a migration tool

Here is the honest constraint that shapes everything else: Gorgias has no native importer for Freshdesk. Per Gorgias's own migrate-from-non-Zendesk-providers documentation, if you can't bring tickets over through Gorgias's email import, you should "use a platform like help-desk-migration.com." That leaves you two real paths:

1. CSV / email import (native, free, lossy). Freshdesk can export tickets to CSV, and Gorgias can ingest some data by email. It's free, but the risks are well documented by the export specialists: field mappings break, threaded conversations flatten into single blobs, and attachments get orphaned from their tickets. Fine for a tiny, disposable dataset — dangerous for real history.
2. A dedicated migration tool (paid, automated, relationship-preserving). For anything past a few hundred tickets, Gorgias officially recommends Help Desk Migration (built by Relokia), which it describes as handling "complex mappings, large data volumes, Delta migration, Interval, and re-migration while preserving all relationships."

For most ecommerce brands with real ticket history, the paid tool is the right call — the labor to repair a broken CSV usually costs more than the migration itself.

Step 2: Connect both accounts and map your data

With Help Desk Migration, the flow is a five-stage wizard: connect both platforms over secure API, map and match the data, run a demo, run the full migration, then a Delta pass. You authorize Freshdesk (subdomain + API key) and Gorgias, then match objects across the two systems — agents to agents, Freshdesk statuses to Gorgias statuses, custom fields to their Gorgias equivalents.

Per Help Desk Migration's Freshdesk to Gorgias page, the objects it maps include Tickets, Agents, Contacts, and — usefully — Freshdesk Business rules become Gorgias Scenario Automations and Macros carry across. That's more than most migrations preserve, but it is not everything, which is the point of the next section.

What moves vs what you rebuild

This table is the heart of the migration. Treat the right-hand column as your post-cutover to-do list, not an afterthought.

The pattern to internalize: your data and conversations move; your logic and configuration you rebuild. A native CSV route loses even more — it typically drops the automation and macro mapping that Help Desk Migration preserves.

Step 3: Run a demo, then the full migration

Never run a full migration blind. Help Desk Migration gives you a free demo migration of a small sample (roughly 20 records) so you can confirm that tickets, agents, and fields landed correctly before you commit. Gorgias echoes this and lets you preview results first.

1. Run the demo migration. Check a handful of migrated tickets in Gorgias: are the threads intact, is the requester correct, did custom fields land in the right place, are attachments attached?
2. Fix the mapping, re-run if needed. If a status or field is wrong, adjust the mapping and demo again. This is the cheap moment to catch errors.
3. Run the full migration. Help Desk Migration advertises zero downtime — Freshdesk keeps taking tickets while data transfers, so you don't go dark on customers.
4. Run a Delta migration. After the full pass, a Delta run catches tickets that were created or updated during the transfer, so nothing that came in mid-migration gets stranded on the old system.

The honest part: downtime, cost, and what native import won't do

Downtime. The data transfer itself is designed to run with no downtime, but the cutover — the moment you switch agents and inbound email into Gorgias — is a real event. Plan it for a low-volume window, and expect a period where you're rebuilding rules and macros in Gorgias while support runs on a thinner ruleset.

Timeline and cost. A small account can finish in under a day; a large account with heavy history can take one to two weeks end to end, and Help Desk Migration prices per project based on data volume and complexity — you get a quote after the demo, not a fixed sticker. Budget rebuild time on top of the tool cost.

Native-import limits. To be fair to the free path: CSV/email import costs nothing and needs no third party. But it flattens threads, breaks field mappings, orphans attachments, and preserves none of your automation or macro logic. For a few dozen throwaway tickets it's fine; for the history of a real store it's a false economy.

Where an AI layer fits — before, during, or instead of a migration

Migrations are disruptive, and sometimes the honest question is whether you need to move at all, or just need your current desk to do more. That's a different tool. An AI agent layer for customer service sits on top of the help desk you already run and does the reasoning-heavy work — reading a ticket, understanding intent, drafting or sending a grounded reply — that neither Freshdesk automations nor Gorgias rules can do on their own.

Macha is exactly that layer for Freshdesk teams: it connects to the Freshdesk you already use as a native connector and works the same tickets your team does — it does not replace your help desk. If you're weighing a platform change mainly to get more automation, it's worth understanding the build-versus-buy tradeoff first: adding an agent layer to Freshdesk is a far smaller project than a full migration. Macha can look up an order or account status through a custom tool that turns your store's REST API into something the agent can call — so even on Freshdesk, an agent can answer "where's order #4471?" without a human going to look. (Macha's connector is for Freshdesk specifically — not Freshchat, Freshservice, or Freshcaller. Credits are consumed per AI action, not per resolution — see the pricing breakdown.)

The clean way to think about it: if Gorgias's Shopify-native experience is genuinely what you need, migrate — and use the mapping table above so nothing gets lost. If what you actually need is more automation on top of solid data you already have, an AI layer may get you there without the two-week project.

FAQ

Does Gorgias have a native importer for Freshdesk? No. Gorgias has no native Freshdesk importer. Its documentation directs you to email import for simple cases, or to a partner tool like Help Desk Migration for anything larger, which is what most teams use.

What data actually migrates from Freshdesk to Gorgias? Via Help Desk Migration, tickets and their conversation history, contacts, and agents migrate, and Freshdesk business rules and macros are mapped to their Gorgias equivalents. SLA policies, business hours, reports, and app integrations do not migrate — you rebuild those in Gorgias.

Will migrating cause downtime? The data transfer is designed to run with zero downtime, so Freshdesk keeps taking tickets during the copy. The cutover — switching agents and inbound email to Gorgias — is the real event to schedule for a quiet window. A Delta migration afterward catches anything created mid-transfer.

How long does a Freshdesk-to-Gorgias migration take? A small account can finish in under a day. A large account with heavy history typically runs one to two weeks end to end, plus the time to rebuild rules, macros, SLAs, and reconnect Shopify on the Gorgias side.

Can I add AI automation to Freshdesk instead of migrating? Yes. An AI agent layer like Macha connects to Freshdesk as a native connector and runs on top of your existing desk — drafting and sending grounded replies and looking up order status — without a migration. It's a much smaller project than moving platforms.

Deciding whether to migrate or just automate what you have? Start a free trial of Macha and connect it to your Freshdesk in minutes to see how much you can resolve before you move anything.