If your support team deals with repetitive tickets, you've probably created macros to speed things up. But what happens when you need to apply that same macro to dozens or hundreds of tickets at once? Going through each ticket individually isn't practical.
The good news is that Zendesk has a built-in way to apply macros in bulk. The not-so-good news? It comes with some important limitations that can trip you up if you're not aware of them.
In this guide, I'll walk you through the exact steps to bulk apply macros to tickets in Zendesk, explain what you can and cannot do, and show you some alternatives when the native approach hits its limits.
What you'll need before you start
Before diving in, make sure you have the following set up:
- A Zendesk Support account on Team, Professional, or Enterprise plan
- At least one macro already created in your account
- Access to ticket views (agents and admins both have this by default)
- Appropriate permissions to edit tickets
- Understanding that you can only update 100 tickets at a time
One quick note: you cannot bulk update closed tickets. If the tickets you want to update are already closed, you'll need to reopen them first or handle them individually.
Step 1: Navigate to your ticket view
The bulk macro feature works through Zendesk's views, so your first step is getting to the right view.
Log into your Zendesk Support workspace. In the left sidebar, you'll see the Views menu. Click it to expand your available views. These are essentially saved filters that show tickets matching specific criteria.
Select the view that contains the tickets you want to update. For example, if you need to apply a macro to all tickets tagged with "shipping_delay," you'd select a view filtered to show only those tickets.
If you don't have a view set up for the tickets you need, you might need to create one first or use the "All unsolved tickets" view and manually select the relevant ones.
Step 2: Select the tickets for bulk action
Once you're in your view, it's time to select the tickets you want to update.
At the top left of the ticket list, you'll see a checkbox. Clicking this selects all tickets currently visible on the page. If you want to select specific tickets instead, you can check the boxes next to individual tickets.
Here's something useful: Zendesk preserves your selections even if you navigate to different pages within the view. So if you have 150 tickets across two pages, you can select all tickets on page one, move to page two, and select those too. Your original selection stays intact.
Remember the 100-ticket limit though. If you select more than 100 tickets, you'll need to do this in batches.
Step 3: Open the bulk edit dialog
After selecting your tickets, look at the bottom of the screen. A toolbar appears showing how many tickets you've selected and what actions you can take.
Click the Edit button in this toolbar. This opens the bulk editor dialog where you can make changes to all selected tickets at once.
The bulk editor isn't just for macros. You can also change ticket status, assignee, priority, tags, and type. You can even add comments to all selected tickets simultaneously. But for our purposes, we're focused on the macro application option.
Step 4: Apply your macro
Inside the bulk editor dialog, look for the Apply Macro dropdown menu. Click it to see a list of all available macros in your account.
You can scroll through the list or start typing to filter macros by name. This is helpful if you have dozens of macros and need to find the right one quickly.
Select the macro you want to apply. Before you submit, you can preview what the macro will do by clicking the preview icon next to the macro name. This shows you exactly which fields will change and what comments will be added.
Once you're satisfied, click Submit to apply the macro to all selected tickets. The updates happen immediately, and you'll see a confirmation message when complete.
Important limitations to know about
Before you start bulk-applying macros across your entire ticket queue, there are some critical limitations you should understand:
100 ticket maximum per operation. This is a hard limit. If you need to update 500 tickets, you'll need to do five separate bulk actions.
Closed tickets are excluded. You cannot bulk update closed tickets at all. They must be reopened first, which requires a separate action.
Attachments don't transfer. If your macro includes attachments in comments, those attachments won't be included when applied in bulk. This is a common source of confusion.
Dynamic content displays as raw text. If your macro uses placeholders like {{ticket.created_at}}, they may display as raw bracketed text instead of the actual values when applied in bulk.
CCs and followers won't be added. The bulk editor doesn't support adding CCs or followers, even if your macro normally does this.
@mentions don't work. If your macro includes @mentions, they'll appear as plain text in bulk updates rather than actual mentions.
Timestamp conflicts can occur. If a ticket is modified by someone else while you're performing your bulk action, that ticket will be skipped with an error.
These limitations exist because bulk operations are processed differently than individual ticket updates. Understanding them upfront saves you from unexpected results.
Troubleshooting common issues
Even with the right setup, things don't always go as planned. Here are solutions to the most common problems:
Macro didn't apply to all tickets. Check if any tickets were modified during your bulk action. Zendesk skips tickets that have been updated since you started the process. You'll need to retry those specific tickets.
Permission errors. If you see permission-related errors, your admin may need to adjust your role settings. Bulk editing requires specific permissions that some custom roles might not have.
"Ticket has been modified" errors. This happens when another agent or automation updates a ticket while you're working. Wait a moment and retry the bulk action on the failed tickets.
Placeholders showing as raw text. This is expected behavior for bulk macro application. If you need dynamic content to render properly, you'll need to apply the macro to tickets individually.
Macro actions missing from ticket events. If you close the ticket tab before submitting, the macro text may appear in the composer but won't be recorded as a macro application in the events log. Always submit before navigating away.
Macro doesn't seem to work at all. Check that the ticket fields your macro updates are actually visible on the ticket forms for the selected tickets. Hidden fields can't be updated by macros.
When to consider alternatives
Zendesk's native bulk macro feature works well for occasional batch updates, but support teams with high ticket volumes quickly hit its limits. If you're regularly applying macros to hundreds of tickets, you might need something more robust.
Third-party apps from the Zendesk Marketplace can extend these capabilities. The Bulk Macros app by ITBYTES offers one-click macro application across entire views, even spanning multiple pages. It includes a preview feature so you can review changes before executing them.
For larger operations, Proactive Bulk Tickets from Sparkly handles up to 15,000 tickets depending on your plan. Their Team plan starts at €99 per month with a 1,000 ticket limit, while Enterprise plans support up to 15,000 tickets at €349 per month.
If you have development resources, the Zendesk API allows for fully customized bulk operations. This requires technical expertise but offers unlimited flexibility.
There's also a fundamentally different approach to consider. Instead of manually bulk-applying macros to handle repetitive tickets, what if those tickets were handled automatically from the start?
That's where we come in. At eesel AI, we take a different approach to repetitive support work. Rather than creating macros and applying them in batches, our AI learns from your past tickets and help center, then handles frontline support autonomously. It drafts and sends responses directly, escalating only the tickets that actually need human attention.
Teams using eesel AI achieve up to 81% autonomous resolution once fully deployed. No more manual bulk actions, no more 100-ticket limits, and no more repetitive workarounds.
Start automating your repetitive ticket responses
Bulk macros in Zendesk are a useful workaround for handling repetitive tickets, but they're still a manual process with real limitations. You're selecting tickets, applying actions, and managing batches, all of which takes time and attention.
If your team is spending significant time on bulk macro applications, it might be time to reconsider your approach. The real solution isn't finding better ways to batch-process repetitive work. It's removing the repetition entirely.
With eesel AI, you don't configure automation rules or build complex macro workflows. You simply connect us to your help desk, and we learn your business from your existing tickets, help center articles, and macros. Within minutes, we can start handling frontline support autonomously.
No 100-ticket limits. No manual batch processing. No workarounds.
Want to see how it works? Try eesel free and see how much of your support volume can be handled without any bulk actions at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Share this post
Article by
Stevia Putri
Stevia Putri is a marketing generalist at eesel AI, where she helps turn powerful AI tools into stories that resonate. She’s driven by curiosity, clarity, and the human side of technology.
