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Connect a real inbox (Gmail or Outlook) to your flow. The platform polls the inbox for new messages, hands each conversation thread to your flow, and replies in-thread when the actor speaks.

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When to use it

  • A shared support inbox (support@acme.com) where users email in.
  • An outbound campaign that needs personalised, threaded follow-ups.
  • A customer service flow that should track context across email exchanges.

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Before you start

You need an integration connection to the email provider. Set this up once in Integrations → Gmail (or Outlook) and pick which account to connect. Manage integration connections →

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Adding the channel

1

Open Flow settings → Channels → Add Channel

Pick Gmail or Outlook.
2

Pick the connection

Choose from the connections set up in your workspace. Each connection represents one inbox.
3

Configure optional filters

Filters are optional. Without them, the flow handles every message in the inbox — usually too aggressive.
4

Save and Deploy

Saving stores the configuration. Deploy starts the listener.

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How inbound email works

  • Each email thread maps to one conversation.
  • Replies are sent in-thread using the configured account.
  • The participant identifier is the sender’s email address. A second message from the same sender continues the same conversation.
  • A new sender opens a new conversation.

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Outbound email (Initiator mode)

When the flow is in Initiator mode, you start a conversation by:
  1. Clicking Start Conversation in the toolbar.
  2. Picking the email channel.
  3. Entering the recipient’s email and optional initial parameters.
  4. The first actor sends an opener email.
  5. When the recipient replies, the reply lands back in the conversation.
Read more: Start a conversation →

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Threading

The platform preserves email threading:
  • Replies use the same Subject and In-Reply-To headers, so the recipient sees a normal threaded conversation.
  • Attachments in incoming emails are ignored in v1 (text-only). The actor sees the body but won’t process attachments.
  • HTML emails are stripped to plain text before the actor reads them.

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Multiple inboxes on one flow

You can add multiple email channels to the same flow — for instance, Gmail for support and Outlook for sales. Each lives independently; conversations from each show up in the same Conversations history.

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Anti-patterns

Connecting a personal inbox. Don’t connect your own inbox to a deployed flow — every email you receive becomes a conversation handled by the flow. Use a dedicated, shared inbox.
No filters on a busy inbox. If the connected inbox gets newsletter mail, autoresponders, or system notifications, the flow tries to reply to all of them. Always set a label or folder filter.

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Next

Messaging (Slack / Teams)

Connect a Slack channel or Teams chat.

Deploy a flow

Schedule the email listener.