If your help articles already live in Freshdesk, import them rather than rewriting them. Imported articles arrive as curated content, the highest trust tier.
What you need
- Your Freshdesk domain — the part before
.freshdesk.com. If you log in atacme.freshdesk.com, your domain isacme. - Your API key.
Finding your API key
- Log in to Freshdesk and click your profile icon (top right).
- Choose Profile settings.
- Your API key is shown in the right-hand panel. Click to reveal and copy it.
Your API key carries your own permissions, so import what your account can see.
Run the import
- In HelpShelf, go to Content and click Import.
- Choose Freshdesk.
- Enter your domain and API key, then connect.
- HelpShelf validates the credentials and fetches your full content tree — categories, folders, and articles.
- Select the categories or individual articles you want.
- Start the import. Progress streams as articles come across.
What gets imported
- Freshdesk folders become HelpShelf collections.
- Freshdesk articles become HelpShelf articles, tagged as curated.
- Only published articles are imported. Drafts are skipped.
Article HTML is cleaned on the way in — inline styles, scripts, and tracking attributes are stripped, while code blocks, tables, and images are preserved.
Embeddings are generated automatically, so imported articles are semantically searchable without further action.
Re-importing
Running the import again updates articles you've already imported rather than duplicating them — they're matched on their Freshdesk article ID. New articles are added; articles you've since deleted in Freshdesk are left alone in HelpShelf.
If you've edited an imported article inside HelpShelf, a re-import will overwrite the source body. Prefer editing in Freshdesk if you plan to re-import regularly.
Freshdesk chat is separate
This imports content. If you also want visitors to reach your Freshchat widget from HelpShelf, that's a different setup — see Connecting live chat.