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Connect an email inbox to your bot

Connect an email account and add the email power-ups so your bot can work with a real inbox: search and read messages, send and reply, and mark or move messages.

Who can do this: team owners and admins.

ℹ️

Only need to send notifications?

If your bot just needs to email you or a few fixed addresses (lead capture, contact requests), use Send email instead. It needs no inbox connection and has no extra cost.

The four email power-ups

Power-upWhat the bot can do
Email: Get MessagesSearch the inbox and read messages. It can filter by sender, recipient, folder and date range, and page through results. It returns up to 10 messages at a time unless it asks for more.
Email: Send MessageSend an email from the connected account, with CC recipients, or as a reply to an existing message.
Email: Get FoldersList the account's folders and labels, so the bot can filter or move messages by folder.
Email: Update MessageMark a message as read or unread, star or unstar it, or move it to folders.

Add only the ones you need. A bot that summarises new mail only needs Email: Get Messages. A bot that files messages needs Get Messages, Get Folders and Update Message.

Pricing

Each connected email account is a paid add-on to your subscription:

  • Monthly plans: $10 per month per connected account
  • Yearly plans: $120 per year per connected account

Your subscription updates automatically when you connect an account. You can connect several accounts to the same team, and each one is billed separately. See Add-ons.

Steps

  1. Open your bot, go to the Power-ups tab and click New power-up.
  2. Search for "Email", choose one of the email power-ups and click Create power-up.
  3. Under Email provider, click Connect email. A dialog explains the charge. Click Connect to continue.
    The Connect an email provider dialog explaining the $10 per month or $120 per year charge, with Cancel and Connect buttons
  4. A pop-up opens. Sign in to your email provider (Gmail, Outlook and others) and allow access. If no pop-up appears, check that your browser isn't blocking pop-ups.
  5. When the pop-up closes, choose the account from the Email provider dropdown.
  6. Edit the Power-up name and Description. Say what kinds of requests the bot should handle, for example "Search the inbox for emails matching the user's request. You can filter by sender, date range and folder."
    Email: Send Message settings with the default description asking for HTML-formatted email bodies, and the Email provider dropdown
  7. Click Save.
  8. Repeat for any other email power-ups you want, choosing the same account in Email provider.
    All four email power-ups enabled on a bot's Power-ups tab

Once an account is connected, other email power-ups can use it without connecting again. To connect a second account, click Connect another email.

Examples

  • "Show me unread emails from today": the bot uses Email: Get Messages with a date filter and summarises them.
  • "Show me emails in my Promotions folder": the bot uses Email: Get Folders to find the folder, then Email: Get Messages filtered to it.
  • "Mark all emails from Alex as read": the bot finds the messages with Email: Get Messages, then updates each one with Email: Update Message.
  • "Reply to Sam and say we'll call tomorrow": the bot finds the message, then uses Email: Send Message as a reply.

Tips

  • Ask for HTML emails. The default Email: Send Message description tells the bot to format email bodies as HTML, so line breaks render properly in every email client. Keep that instruction if you rewrite the description.
  • Use different accounts for different power-ups. Each power-up has its own Email provider, so one bot can work with more than one inbox.
  • Be careful with public bots. Anyone who can chat with the bot can ask it to read or send email from the connected account. Only add inbox power-ups to bots that trusted people use, such as an internal Slack bot.

Check it works

  1. Chat with your bot while signed in and ask "What are my three most recent emails?"
  2. Open View details on the power-up call and check the result lists your messages.

Troubleshooting

A new email or folder doesn't show up yet

The connected account syncs with your email provider, so newly received messages and new folders can take a few minutes to appear.

The bot can't find messages in a folder

Folder IDs are different for every provider. Add Email: Get Folders so the bot can look up the right folder ID instead of guessing.

Sent emails lose their line breaks

Tell the bot in the Description to always format email bodies as HTML, using <p> and <br> tags.

Related

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