> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rundesert.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Email

> Forward mail to an address we give you, with no account to connect.

Every workspace owner gets an address on our domain. Forward mail to it from
whatever mail client you already use, and your automations receive those
messages.

This is the other way to do [incoming email](/triggers/incoming-email). The
[Google integration](/integrations/google) reads your inbox directly and needs
you to connect your account. This one needs nothing from your provider. You
decide which mail to forward, and we only ever see what you send us.

## Find your address

Open **Integrations** in the dashboard and choose **Email**. Your address sits at
the top of the page and looks like `acme-7fkq2m@rundesert.com`.

Press **Copy** rather than typing it out. An address with one character wrong
fails quietly, and you find out days later as mail that never turned up.

The random part on the end is deliberate. Without it, anyone who knew your
organisation name could guess the address and aim their own mail at your
automations.

Everyone in an organisation shares one address. Working outside an organisation,
you get your own.

Under the address is either "Nothing has arrived here yet" or the time the last
message landed. That one line is the quickest way to tell whether forwarding is
actually working.

## Set up forwarding

The steps below are Gmail's, because Gmail is the fussiest. It makes you prove
you own the address before it will send anything there. Any provider that can
forward to an outside address works the same way.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Add the address in Gmail">
    In Gmail, open **Settings**, then **Forwarding and POP/IMAP**, then **Add a
    forwarding address**. Paste your address and continue.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Approve the request here">
    Gmail sends a confirmation to that address, so it arrives with us and never
    in an inbox you can open. This catches everyone out, because Gmail tells you
    to go and read the email.

    Come back to **Integrations → Email**, open the **Requests** tab, and press
    **Check for requests**. It usually shows up within a few seconds. Read the
    mailbox named on the request, make sure it is yours, then press **Approve**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Turn forwarding on">
    Back in Gmail, choose **Forward a copy of incoming mail to**, pick the
    address, and save.

    Approving does not switch forwarding on. It only tells Gmail it is allowed
    to. Mail starts arriving once you finish this last step.
  </Step>
</Steps>

### When we cannot confirm it for you

Approving normally finishes the confirmation with Google on your behalf. When
that fails, the request stays on the page marked **Not confirmed** and gives you
a link to Google's own confirmation page. Open it and finish it there.

Older Gmail confirmations carried a short code instead of a link. If the request
shows a code, paste that code into Gmail's forwarding settings and you are done.

### Other providers

None of this is Gmail specific. Anything that can forward to an outside address
can forward here, and any confirmation it sends turns up under the same
**Requests** tab. Outlook and iCloud ask for no confirmation at all, so with
those you just set forwarding and mail starts arriving.

For a provider we have not seen before, the request still appears, marked as a
guess from the wording. Those messages are handed to your automations as well,
because we would rather show you an extra card than quietly swallow a real
email.

## Approve carefully

Anyone who learns your address can point their own mail at it. That is why
nothing forwards until somebody signs in and approves it.

Before you press Approve, read the mailbox on the request. If you did not just
set that address up in Gmail yourself, press **Reject**. Approving would run a
stranger's mail through your workspaces.

## Turning it off

Remove the forwarding address at your provider and mail stops. **No provider
tells us when that happens.** There is no notification for it.

This is why the page shows you requests and the decision you made on each, and
does not show a list of "connected" mailboxes. A list like that could only ever
describe the last thing we heard, while reading as a statement about right now.
A request is a record of something that happened, so it never goes stale. Where
we do have evidence, you get it: forwarded mail names the mailbox it came from,
so an approved request tells you when mail last came down that forward.

Rejecting a request you have not approved does tell the provider no, where its
email gave us a way to say so. And nothing forwards without approval in the
first place, so a request you simply ignore is already refused.

## Ask for the automation

This address is the one mail capability that is always available, so the agent can
build on it without asking you to connect anything. It can:

* **Read what has arrived**, including mail from before the automation existed.
* **Send from the address**, so replies come back to the same mailbox.
* **Reply in the thread**, so the person you answer sees one conversation rather
  than a second one alongside it.
* **Handle attachments both ways.** It fetches a file that arrived when the job
  needs the contents, and attaches files to what it sends, up to 10MB a message.
* **React to each new message** as it lands.

> Watch this address for invoices and pull out the amounts.

> Email the customer a confirmation when a form comes in.

If you have also connected Google, say which mailbox you mean:

> Use my desert address for this, not my Gmail account.

What your automation sees is the same either way: sender, recipients, subject,
body, arrival time, and a list of attachment names. The
[limits](/triggers/incoming-email#what-your-automation-sees) are the same too.

## If mail is not arriving

Work down this list in order. The first two causes account for almost all of it.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Check the line under your address">
    "Nothing has arrived here yet" means no message has ever reached the
    address, so the problem is at your provider and not in your automation.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Finish the last step at your provider">
    Approving only grants permission. If you never went back to Gmail and picked
    the address under **Forward a copy of incoming mail to**, nothing forwards.
    When we spot an approved request that has stayed silent, the page says so at
    the top.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Look for a lapsed request">
    A request still waiting after a day is marked as possibly lapsed. Add the
    address again at your provider and a fresh request arrives.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Ask the agent whether the workspace is listening">
    Mail reaching the address is one half. The workspace also has to be
    subscribed to it, and the agent sets that up.

    > Check this workspace is subscribed to my desert address.
  </Step>
</Steps>

Forwarding that was set up and later removed looks exactly like forwarding that
was never finished, because no provider tells us when it stops. If you have
ruled out the steps above, re-add the address at your provider.

## Worth knowing

* **Forward only what you need.** Set a Gmail filter that forwards the senders
  the job cares about, and the rest of your mail never leaves your inbox.
* **Each message arrives once.** Duplicates are handled for you.
* **Forwarding one mailbox both ways is a duplicate.** If you have connected
  Google *and* forward the same mailbox here, every message reaches us twice. An
  automation listens to one of these, never both, so nothing is processed
  twice, but there is no reason to run both.
* **Mail can land late.** If your workspace was asleep, expect a 10 to 60 second
  delay while it wakes up.