Email channel: your support address and your own mailbox

AI Assistant answers customers by email in two ways, and both end in the same Inbox thread. Every workspace already has a support address your mate answers from. You can also connect your own mailbox, the address customers already write to, so your mate answers there in the same thread and works beside you as a mail copilot. Nothing leaves without your say-so.

1. Your support address (ready now)

Every workspace gets an inbox address in the shape <slug>@support.busymate.ai, shown at the top of Console → Email. There is nothing to register or verify: publish it wherever you point customers for support, and every message that arrives is read, answered from that same address, and kept in one thread with every reply.

2. Connect your own mailbox

Under Connected mailboxes, choose Connect a mailbox. You may type the address your mate answers from, or pick it in the next step. The button opens a hosted sign-in page:

• IMAP: your mail server, a user name and a password (an app password where your provider issues them). Server settings are found from the address; you can correct them.
• Gmail: sign in with Google and grant mailbox access. A Google Workspace mailbox works today; connect a personal Gmail account over IMAP with an app password until Google's review of the sign-in completes.
• Outlook / Microsoft 365: sign in with your Microsoft account. Personal Outlook.com mailboxes are not available yet.

No password is pasted into the Console or stored by AI Assistant; the Console only learns that the sign-in succeeded. It then verifies the mailbox, registers the delivery hook, and shows Connected as your address · Mailbox connected · Webhook registered.

An unfinished sign-in stays on Waiting for sign-in with Reopen the sign-in. A sign-in the provider later rejects shows Sign-in expired — re-authenticate, and Re-authenticate opens the same page. Each connected mailbox answers its own address.

3. What happens to an incoming message

A new message becomes an Inbox conversation under the Email channel, in the same thread as earlier mail with that customer. Your mate answers with the same knowledge and rules as every channel, and the reply goes out from the connected mailbox, threaded, so the customer's next message lands in the same conversation. Automatic replies are recorded but never answered, and a copy of mail your own mailbox sent is never treated as a customer message. While a person has taken over the thread, your mate stays quiet; see Human hand-off.

4. How your mate uses the mailbox (settings)

Each connected mailbox has its own settings on the Email page.

Customer mail context sets how much of an identified customer's earlier mail your mate may read when it answers, on any channel: Off (only the current thread), Summaries (a short history) or Full (the past mail itself). The mail never leaves your workspace, and every retrieval is logged under Insight.

Copilot actions switch what your mate may do in this mailbox: summarize, draft, translate, send replies, send new mail, forward, send invites, archive and move, flag, delete. An action left off is refused everywhere, and a draft is never sent without a confirmation.

Signature, Send-as name and Reply from set how outgoing mail reads and which address it comes from. Rules for what reaches your mate, where it is routed and how replies are sent sit under Console › Connections › EmailEngine; see Run email on your own EmailEngine server for every page there.

5. The mail copilot in the Inbox

An email conversation in the Inbox shows every message in order, with quoted copies folded away, attachments downloadable, and each outgoing message's state: Sending…, Sent, Could not deliver — reason or Bounced — reason. The composer adds AI draft (a grounded reply to edit), Summarize, Translate, Forward, Invite (a calendar invitation the customer can accept) and Send, which goes through the same outbox as every operator reply. Your mate has the same actions in Console chat and over MCP, under the same switches.

6. Delivery problems

An undeliverable reply or a bounce shows its reason on the thread, and the Email page reads Last delivery problem with the time. Nothing is retried silently: fix the address or the mailbox, then send again.

7. Disconnecting

Disconnect mailbox stops your mate reading and answering that mailbox and revokes the sign-in you granted; the conversations and their mail stay in the Inbox as history, and your support address keeps working.

8. Run it on your own server

By default the mail runs on our EmailEngine server. On every plan you can move your workspace onto your own, so mailboxes and mail stay on infrastructure you control: see Run email on your own EmailEngine server.

MCP tools

Everything here is available on your workspace's MCP endpoint, with the Console's permissions: connect_email_channel, get_email_channel_status, set_email_channel_settings, disconnect_email_channel, list_email_threads, get_email_thread, search_email, send_email_reply, summarize_email_thread, suggest_email_reply, translate_email, and the confirmed actions send_email, reply_email, forward_email, send_calendar_invite, move_email, flag_email and delete_email.

Limits

• Threads follow the standard headers (Message-ID, In-Reply-To, References); mail whose program strips them starts a new conversation, which you can merge in the Inbox.
• Search covers mail received since the mailbox was connected.
• A mailbox whose sign-in keeps failing for three days is paused by the provider until you re-authenticate.

Verify

1. Email your workspace's support address from an account you do not otherwise use: a reply arrives from that address within a few minutes.
2. Connect a mailbox: the Email page reads Mailbox connected · Webhook registered.
3. Email the connected mailbox: the conversation appears under Email with the reply marked Sent, threaded in the sender's mailbox.
4. Use AI draft, edit the draft and send it: it arrives threaded.
5. Switch off Send replies for the mailbox: a send is refused.