Soloclef Notes DocsConnecting a mailbox to read, and the emails the app sends you
Soloclef Notes works with email in two ways. It can read a mailbox you connect, so the assistant can find and read your mail; it never sends mail from it. And it sends you a few emails of its own: password resets, workspace invitations and automation results.
Connecting a mailbox
It works with any mail provider that lets you sign in over IMAP with a password or an app password, and with Microsoft mailboxes through Microsoft's own sign-in (see Microsoft mailboxes).
- Open Workspace settings → Connectors and choose Connect on the Email (IMAP) card. It opens in place.
- Choose Add account and fill in:
- Label: a name for the mailbox, such as Work inbox. Left empty, the username is used.
- IMAP host and Port: your provider's IMAP server. The port is 993 unless you change it.
- Use TLS: on by default. With it off, the connection is still encrypted, with STARTTLS; it never runs in plain text. The port doesn't change by itself: with Use TLS off, set your provider's STARTTLS port, usually 143.
- Username and Password.
- Choose Test connection to check the settings. It says how many folders it found, and saves nothing.
- Choose Save.
If your provider uses two-factor sign-in, the password must be an app password, not your normal one:
- Gmail: Google Account → Security → App passwords. This needs 2-Step Verification.
- Outlook / Microsoft 365: no password works. Use Connect a Microsoft account instead, below.
Microsoft mailboxes
Microsoft turned off IMAP sign-in with a password or app password, for Microsoft 365 work and school mailboxes from 1 October 2022 and for Outlook.com, Hotmail and Live mailboxes from 16 September 2024. These mailboxes connect through Microsoft instead:
- On the Email (IMAP) card, choose Connect a Microsoft account.
- Microsoft's page opens. Choose the account, sign in and accept. Microsoft's page says the app may read and write your mail, because Microsoft has no read-only permission for IMAP; Soloclef Notes still only reads (see What the assistant can do with it).
- You come back to the Connectors page with "Microsoft account connected", and the mailbox in the list as address · Microsoft. Test connection checks it.
If the card has no Connect a Microsoft account button and says "Microsoft accounts aren't supported yet.", the site's administrator hasn't set up Microsoft sign-in.
- Finish within 10 minutes, in the same browser. Otherwise you see "The Microsoft sign-in timed out. Try again."
- Work or school accounts: your organization may let only its administrators approve apps. You then see "Your organization's administrator has to approve this app first." Your administrator can also turn IMAP off for a mailbox; Test connection then says the mail server refused access and IMAP may be turned off for it.
- Staying connected. The sign-in renews itself while the mailbox is used. Changing your Microsoft password does not end it: to stop Soloclef Notes reading the mailbox, remove it here. Microsoft ends it when the mailbox isn't used for 90 days, when you remove the app's access (see Removing it below), or when all your sign-in sessions are revoked, by you or, for a work or school account, by your administrator. The row then says "Microsoft needs you to sign in again." with a Reconnect button; reconnecting keeps the same mailbox.
- Only your own mailbox. You connect the mailbox of the Microsoft account you sign in with; shared mailboxes can't be added.
- Removing it deletes the stored sign-in from Soloclef Notes. Microsoft keeps listing the app until you remove its access there too: for a personal account at account.live.com/consent/Manage; for a work or school account, ask your administrator.
You can add several mailboxes. The password, or the Microsoft sign-in, is stored encrypted and is never shown again, to you or to anyone else. Remove takes a mailbox off Soloclef Notes only: nothing changes in the mailbox itself.
To add a mailbox, you need to be an Owner or Editor of the workspace you add it from. The mail server must be on the internet: for a server on a private network, Test connection says "Couldn't connect: Could not connect to this mail server", and Save says "Couldn't add this account. Check the details and try again."
What the assistant can do with it
Mail is read live, when it is needed. Nothing is copied into the app: a message never becomes a source and is never added to search. The assistant can:
- list your mailboxes and their folders,
- search by words, sender, recipient, subject and dates, or for unread mail only. It searches the inbox unless a folder is named, and every mailbox unless one is named. Results come newest first across all mailboxes, and the assistant is told when there were more than it was given,
- read one message: who sent it, to whom, when, its subject, its text and its list of attachments,
- read one attachment: PDF (scans included), text, Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx), Excel (.xlsx and .xls) and CSV files, and images, which the vision model describes. Old Word (.doc) files can't be read.
It is read-only by design. It can't send, delete, move or flag mail, and it never marks a message as read.
Mail is read in automations: a task is set to read it when its Can use includes the web. That is an instruction the assistant follows, not a lock. A notebook's chat can read mail too. A connected mailbox stays within the assistant's reach wherever the mailbox is on (see In shared workspaces).
Limits
- A search returns up to 50 messages (20 unless more are asked for). Up to 200 folders are listed.
- A message's text is cut at 20,000 characters.
- An attachment can be up to 25 MB. A PDF can have up to 500 pages, a spreadsheet is read up to its first 200 rows and 50 columns per sheet, and up to 200,000 characters of an attachment's text are kept. Reading one attachment can take up to 60 seconds.
- Connecting to the mail server gives up after 10 seconds.
- A Microsoft sign-in must be finished within 10 minutes, in the browser it started in.
Cost
Reading mail costs nothing beyond the chat message or automation step that asks for it. An image attachment counts as one vision image (see Plans and credits).
In shared workspaces
A mailbox belongs to your account, not to one workspace, so it is on in every workspace you belong to. In a workspace you share with other people, the assistant can search and read the mailbox of every member who connected one: yours from their chats and automations there, and theirs from yours.
To turn your mail off in one workspace, open Workspace settings → Connectors and pick Email (IMAP) under Your connectors. If you are the only member there with a mailbox, that opens your mail's settings. If other members have connected one too, it opens a list with one card for each member's mail, all named Email (IMAP); yours is marked Yours, the others Another member's. Switch off Enabled in this workspace on yours. The switch covers all your mailboxes at once. From then on no one's chats or automations in that workspace read them. Your connectors then marks Email (IMAP) Off, or, while other members' mail is still on there, shows how many are on, such as "1 of 2 on". Your other workspaces keep your mail, and switching it back on needs nothing new. Switching it off needs the Owner role in that workspace.
Mailboxes are added and removed only on the Email (IMAP) card, under Overview on the same page; your mail's settings have no Disconnect. Remove on a mailbox takes it out of every workspace. The card shows only your own mailboxes, not the ones other members connected.
You can't connect a mailbox from the phone app, and agents connected over MCP can't read your mail.
Emails the app sends you
These come from Soloclef Notes through the site's own mail service. If outgoing mail is off on the server, none are sent.
- Password reset. Forgot Password? on the sign-in page sends "Reset your Soloclef Notes password". The link works once and expires in 30 minutes. One address is sent at most 3 an hour; further requests send nothing. See Getting started.
- Workspace invitation. "Name invited you to workspace on Soloclef Notes", with an Open the invitation button and the date it expires. Only the account with that address can accept it. The person who invited you can Resend it, at most once a minute. If the email can't be sent, they see "Invitation created, email not sent" and can copy the link to you. See Workspaces and sharing.
- Automation result. With Email me the result on, each run that finishes sends its result to the person who created the automation. The subject is the automation's name and the date (in UTC), such as "Weekly digest — 2026-10-05", and the email holds the run's final answer. When a run fails, needs attention or hits its time limit, the subject ends "(failed)", "(needs attention)" or "(timed out)" and the email gives the reason. A cancelled run sends nothing. See Automations.
There are no other emails: Notifications stay in the app, and no email is sent to confirm your address.
Writing to the site's owner
Report Issue, on an error message, opens your own mail app with a report already written to the site's support address: the error code, request ID, message, page, browser and time. Nothing is sent until you send it. The contact page shows the same address.