Connect a mailbox as a Kronos inbox
Connect the mailbox your customers already write to and every new email lands in the same Kronos inbox you use for WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and Messenger. Your AI agent reads it and replies — from your own address, through your own mail server.
TL;DR
- Open Kronos → Connect → tap Email.
- Type a name for the inbox, the email address, and the password.
- If your provider requires an app password — Gmail, Yahoo, and most providers with 2-step verification do — generate one and paste that instead.
- Tap Connect. Kronos signs in to both servers before saving anything.
- New emails start arriving within about a minute.
What you need before you start
The mailbox address and its password, or an app password. Nothing else — Kronos fills in the server names and ports from your address, and every one of them is editable under Advanced server settings.
Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Zoho, iCloud, Hostinger, IONOS and Fastmail are recognized automatically. For any other domain Kronos guesses imap.yourdomain.com and smtp.yourdomain.com, which is right for most business hosting. If it is not, open Advanced and type the correct ones — your provider publishes them under “mail client settings”.
App passwords
Most providers no longer let an application sign in with your account password. They issue a separate, revocable app password instead.
- Gmail: turn on 2-step verification, then create an app password. Your normal Gmail password will not work.
- Yahoo: generate an app password from your account security settings.
- Your own domain: the mailbox password usually works as-is.
An app password is safer than your account password: it only grants mail access, and you can revoke it at any time without changing anything else.
Microsoft 365 and business Outlook
Microsoft has disabled password sign-in for mail applications on business accounts. If your mailbox is on Microsoft 365, Kronos says so directly instead of showing a generic “wrong password” error. There is nothing you can change on your side to make it work today — support for Microsoft accounts is planned. Personal Outlook and Hotmail accounts may still connect with an app password.
What happens after you connect
- Your existing mail is left alone. Kronos records where your mailbox is right now and reads only what arrives after that. Nothing in your history is imported, read, or answered.
- New emails become conversations. Each thread is one conversation. A reply lands in the same conversation, not a new one.
- Your agent replies from your address. One email, threaded onto the message it answers, so it shows up inside the original thread in your customer's mail client.
- Replies appear in your Sent folder. Opening your normal mail client shows both halves of the conversation.
- Attachments come through. Images, PDFs and documents your customer attaches are visible in the Kronos conversation.
What Kronos ignores on purpose
An inbox receives a lot of mail nobody should answer. Kronos drops these before your agent ever sees them, so they cost you nothing.
- Out-of-office and other automatic replies.
- Newsletters, mailing lists, and anything marked as bulk.
- Bounce notices and delivery failure reports.
- Mail from noreply@, no-reply@, postmaster@ and similar addresses.
- Kronos' own replies, if your mail server copies them back into the inbox.
Reply limits
Two limits protect you from a runaway bill. Both work quietly in the background.
1,000 agent replies per billing period
Email only. One reply means one email delivered to a customer, no matter how much thinking went into it. At the limit your agent stops replying by email, the conversations stay open so you can answer by hand, and you get one notification. WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Messenger and Custom Inbox have no such limit.
10 agent replies per thread per 24 hours
If a single thread keeps going back and forth, Kronos pauses that one conversation and notifies you. This is what stops two automated systems from emailing each other forever. Reply to the thread yourself and it resumes.
Managing a connected inbox
Open Settings → Inboxes and pick the mailbox. From there you can see whether it is connected right now and what went wrong if it is not, change the name, the server settings and the folder Kronos reads, paste a new password after rotating it with your provider, and press Test connection to check immediately instead of waiting.
Every one of those actions signs in to the real servers before saving. If the mail server rejects the new settings, nothing is written and your working inbox stays working.
When an inbox disconnects
A mailbox can stop working without you touching it: a rotated password, a revoked app password, a renamed folder. Kronos marks the inbox as disconnected, tells you what the mail server said in plain language, and notifies you. Fix the credentials in Settings → Inboxes, press Test connection, and the inbox resumes.
Connecting more than one mailbox
Repeat the process. Each mailbox becomes its own inbox with its own conversation list, assigned agent, and history — one for support and one for sales, or one per brand or country. The same address can only be connected once per account.
Privacy and security
- Your mailbox password is encrypted and stored where nobody — including you, after you type it — can read it back. It is never shown again and never sent to your browser.
- Kronos reads only the folder you point it at, and only messages that arrive after you connect.
- Email content is treated strictly as customer data. Instructions written inside an email are never followed as commands — your agent answers them, it does not obey them.
- Because replies go through your own server, your sending reputation applies, exactly as if you had written the reply yourself.
Common questions
Does Kronos need access to my whole Google account?
No. There is no Google sign-in and no permission screen. Kronos uses a standard mail connection with the app password you generate, and reads only the folder you choose.
Will my customers see that a machine replied?
The reply comes from your address, inside the existing thread, with your inbox's display name. What the agent says is entirely up to how you configure it.
Can I stop the agent on one conversation?
Yes. Reassign the conversation away from the agent, or just reply yourself — the conversation is yours at any point.
What if I delete a message in my mail client?
Kronos already has its own copy of the conversation, so the Kronos inbox is unaffected.
Other channels: WhatsApp, Telegram, Custom Inbox. For how inboxes work in general, see Inboxes.