---
title: Outlook
summary: Connect an Outlook account so your AI agents can read and send email, organize folders, manage the calendar, and look up contacts under permissions you control.
category: integrations
slug: outlook
---

## What Outlook in Kronos lets your agents do

Once an Outlook account is connected to Kronos, your agents can — within
the permissions you grant — work with your mail, calendar, and contacts:

**Read actions** (available when an agent has "Read only" or higher):

- List and search your inbox messages, and read a specific message.
- List your mail folders and check for new mail since the last check.
- Read mail tips for a recipient (such as automatic replies or whether a
  mailbox is full) before composing.
- Download an attachment from a message.
- List your calendars, list events, and read a specific event.
- Look up a contact, and read your Outlook profile.

**Write actions** (available only when an agent has "Read and write"):

- Send a new email, and reply to an existing one.
- Create an email draft.
- Update a message, add an attachment to it, and move it to another
  folder.
- Create and delete mail folders, and create inbox rules.
- Create a calendar event.
- Create a contact.
- Update your mailbox settings.

You decide which agent gets which level, and you can switch any
permission off in one click without disconnecting the Outlook account.

## Connecting Outlook

1. Open Kronos → **Connect** in the sidebar → **Applications** tab.
2. Click the **Outlook** card to open the detail dialog, then click the
   green **Connect** button.
3. You land on Microsoft's sign-in screen. Sign in and pick the account
   you want to connect.
4. Review the access Microsoft lists and approve it.
5. You're sent back to Kronos at the **Already connected** tab with the
   new Outlook entry pre-selected.

You can connect more than one Outlook account; each appears as its own
connection with its own email address.

## Telling connections apart

The Outlook management page shows the connected account's email address
right under the "Outlook" title (for example, `you@outlook.com`). This is
how Kronos and you identify which account this connection represents.

If you connect more than one account, each appears with its own email
address. Optionally you can add a short personal note next to it (the
"Your note for this connection" field) — labels like "Work", "Personal",
or "Support" make it easier to scan a long list. The note is yours only;
agents always identify the account by its email address and ID, not by
the note.

## Giving an agent access

On the Outlook management page click **+ Add AI Agent**, pick the agent
from the dropdown, then choose:

- **Off** — the agent cannot touch this Outlook account.
- **Read only** — the agent can read and search mail, list folders, and
  read the calendar and contacts, but cannot send, reply, create, move,
  or delete anything.
- **Read and write** — the agent can do all of the above plus send and
  reply to mail, create drafts and events, organize folders, and update
  settings.

The same controls are available inside the AI Agent editor — scroll to
the **Connected Apps** section.

## Fine-grained overrides

Inside the permissions modal (the gear icon next to an Outlook account in
the agent editor or on the management page) you'll see the full list of
Outlook actions grouped by **Read tools** and **Write tools**. Toggle
individual actions on or off to override the preset.

Common combinations:

- **Triage-only agent**: preset Read only, no overrides. The agent reads
  and summarizes mail but cannot send anything.
- **Reply-only agent**: preset Read only, override `Reply to email` and
  `Send email` ON. The agent can read and respond, but cannot delete
  folders or change settings.
- **Scheduling agent**: preset Read only, override `Create Calendar
  Event` ON. The agent can read the calendar and book events, but cannot
  touch your mail.
- **Full assistant**: preset Read and write, no overrides.

Click Save to apply. Changes take effect on the next message the agent
processes.

## Multiple Outlook accounts on the same agent

If an agent has access to two or more Outlook accounts (e.g. Work +
Personal), the agent picks which account to use on every action based on
context. When the request is ambiguous ("send an email to Carlos"), the
agent will ask which account to send from.

You can cut ambiguity by turning the agent's access to one account off,
or by giving the connections obviously distinct notes ("Work" vs
"Personal").

## When something goes wrong

- **"Needs reconnect"** badge — Microsoft revoked or expired the
  connection. Open `/app/connect`, click Outlook, walk through Connect
  again. Permissions are preserved.
- **Agent says "I can't send email"** — that agent's permission preset is
  Off or Read only without the `Send email` override. Open the
  permissions modal and adjust.
- **Agent says the connected app is temporarily unavailable** — Microsoft
  or the connection had a transient hiccup. Ask the user to retry in a
  moment. If it persists, check the management page for a "Needs
  reconnect" badge.

## Privacy

Kronos does NOT store the content of your Outlook mail, calendar, or
contacts. Each time an agent uses an Outlook action, it fetches
just-in-time through the connection, uses what it needs to complete the
task, and discards the result. The audit log records that the action
happened (which agent, which action, when, and whether it succeeded), but
not the message bodies or event details.

When you disconnect Outlook or cancel your Kronos subscription, the
connection and all per-agent permissions are deleted immediately.