Email accounts
Connect a mailbox over IMAP and SMTP to send and receive email inside CommSync.
When you connect an email account, its mailbox joins CommSync's unified inbox. Inbound messages arrive in real time via IMAP IDLE; outbound messages go out over SMTP. Once connected, every email from a contact sits alongside their SMS messages in a single thread.
Channel access
Mailboxes belong to the workspace, not to the teammate who connected them — the same model phone numbers use. Owners and admins can use every mailbox. Members get a mailbox two ways. They connect it themselves, or an owner or admin assigns it to them.
Manage this from the Access control on each account. It lists everyone who can use the mailbox (owners and admins are always on), and lets admins grant or revoke members inline. See the roles and permissions guide for the full model.
What you need before you connect
To connect a mailbox you need the following information from your mail provider or IT team:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| IMAP host | imap.example.com |
| IMAP port | 993 (SSL) or 143 (STARTTLS) |
| IMAP secure | Whether the connection uses TLS |
| SMTP host | smtp.example.com |
| SMTP port | 587 (STARTTLS) or 465 (SSL) |
| SMTP secure | Whether the connection uses TLS |
| Username | Usually your full email address |
| Password | Your mailbox password or an app-specific password |
Gmail and Microsoft 365
Most modern providers need an app-specific password or an OAuth token,
rather than your main account password. Check the documentation from your
provider for IMAP access or app passwords before you connect.
How CommSync stores your credentials
CommSync encrypts your IMAP and SMTP credentials at the application layer before it stores them. The encryption uses authenticated AES-256-GCM, and CommSync holds the encryption key separately — so a compromised storage export cannot reveal your credentials. The managed database protects message bodies and attachment bytes with database-level encryption at rest, and Cloud Storage's default encryption also protects attachment storage.
Connect an email account
Open Email accounts settings
Go to Settings → Email accounts. Click Add email account to start.
Enter your IMAP settings
Fill in the IMAP host, port, and secure flag. Enter your username and password. CommSync tests the connection before it saves.
Enter your SMTP settings
Fill in the SMTP host, port, and secure flag. The username and password default to the same values as IMAP — update them if your provider uses separate outbound credentials.
Save and verify
Click Connect. CommSync tests both the IMAP and SMTP connections. If either test fails, an error message shows you what went wrong, so you can correct the settings before you save.
Wait for initial sync
After a successful connection, CommSync begins to sync your existing messages, newest first. Based on your mailbox size, this historical sync can take a few minutes. Live inbound messages arrive immediately via IMAP IDLE, regardless of historical sync progress.
How inbound email works
CommSync keeps an IMAP IDLE connection open to your mailbox. When a new message arrives at the provider, the server pushes a notification to CommSync — there is no polling delay. CommSync parses the message, matches it to a contact identity, and places it into the appropriate thread within seconds.
Forwarded emails carry extra metadata (Resent-From, X-Forwarded headers, or embedded body blocks). CommSync parses this to identify the original sender. So a forwarded email from a client lands on the client's thread, instead of only on the thread of the colleague who forwarded it.
See Threading for how CommSync decides which thread a message belongs to.
How outbound email works
When you send an email from CommSync, CommSync sends the message over SMTP with the credentials from the linked email account. CommSync updates the delivery status as the send completes.
Which account a message goes out from depends on the conversation, and on
whether you have nominated a mailbox of your own. If you can use several
mailboxes, set one as your default under Settings → Account → Default sending lines. See sending messages for the full picture.
Sender name
Every linked account has a Sender name. That is the display name stamped
on the From header for outbound mail, exactly the way Gmail and Apple Mail
do it:
From: "Priya Sharma" <priya@northwind.example>Set it in Settings → Email accounts. When you first connect the account,
CommSync pre-fills it with your own name. You can also set it later via
Edit on the account card. The form shows a live preview of the header as
you type.
Without a sender name, recipients see only the raw address. Some mail clients will also substitute whatever name their own address book has for that address. On a shared mailbox, that can name a different person entirely. Set a sender name on every account your team sends from.
The account, and its sender name, belongs to the workspace. Because of that,
everyone who sends from a shared mailbox sends under the same name. For role
addresses, pick a neutral name — Northwind Support, for example.
Channel uniqueness
CommSync can only link an email address to one workspace globally. If you try to link an address that another workspace already owns, you will see a conflict error. To resolve it, you must remove the address from the other workspace first, or the two workspaces must consolidate into one.
This applies even to personal workspaces. If you linked the address from a different account before, remove it there before you connect it to a new workspace.
How to remove an email account
Go to Settings → Email accounts, find the account, and click Remove.
CommSync immediately stops the mailbox sync. Threads and messages already in
your inbox from that account stay there — removal does not delete historical
data.