Connect an email inbox

Connect a mailbox and the requests people email you arrive in the workspace without anyone retyping them. The Email (IMAP) connector reads one folder. Each new message becomes a task, or goes to Tasks → Inbox for you to decide.

It works with any provider that offers IMAP: Gmail, Google Workspace, Outlook, Fastmail, or your own mail server. It only reads. It never sends mail from your mailbox.

Before you start

• Add your skills. Go to Console → Skills. The engine picks a skill only from your own list, and the description is what it reads. Five or six skills, each with a one-sentence description, is enough.
• Pick the folder. Use a whole shared inbox, or one folder or label in your own mailbox. Connecting your whole personal inbox turns every newsletter into a question in the tray.

Gmail and Google Workspace

Sign-in with Google (OAuth) is on the way. Until then, Gmail connects with an app password: a separate 16-character password that works only for this connection.

1. Turn on 2-Step Verification for the Google account.
2. Open myaccount.google.com/apppasswords, create a password named Fivexer and copy it.

On a Google Workspace account, your admin can turn app passwords off. If the app passwords page says they are not available, ask your admin, or use a forwarder instead.

Only one folder of your own inbox

Gmail shows each label as a folder, so you can connect just the mail you label for Fivexer.

1. In Gmail, create a filter that adds a label, for example Fivexer, to the mail you want as work. Filter by sender, by the address it was sent to, or by a word in the subject.
2. In the connector, set Folder to Fivexer. A nested label is written Parent/Child.
3. Set After a message is filed to Leave it alone, so your own mail is not marked as read.

If the folder is not found, open Gmail's Settings → Labels and tick Show in IMAP for that label.

A Google shared inbox

What to connect depends on what your shared inbox is:

Other providers

Connect it in the console

1. Go to Settings → Connectors and press Add a connector.
2. Choose Email and press Continue.
3. Fill in the server, username and password.
4. Under Fivexer API key, press Create a key. The connector files mail through the intake API, so it needs its own key. Revoking that key later stops this connection and nothing else.
5. Open More Email (IMAP) settings if you need them:
   • Folder: blank reads INBOX.
   • After a message is filed: Mark it as read (the default), Leave it alone, or Move it to another folder.
   • Read this many days of history first: leave it blank the first time. A large number puts all of that old mail in the tray at once.
6. Press Check and continue. The console checks both that the mailbox opens and that the key is accepted.
7. Keep Mail into the inbox tray switched on and press Finish setup.

On the connection card, Sync now reads the folder.

What happens to each message

At first, everything goes to the tray. The engine creates tasks on its own only after it has learned from your answers there, so each accept and each dismiss teaches it.

If app passwords are blocked

Forward the mail instead. Anything that can make an HTTPS request, such as a Cloudflare Email Worker, Zapier, Make or your own code, can post each message to POST /v1/intake/messages with an API key. See Auth & keys for creating the key, and send the provider's Message-ID as externalId so a retry is never filed twice.

Troubleshooting