Email

Connect it

Email reaches your assistant from any mail app, on any device. You write to your own address with +conch added (you+conch@gmail.com), and the answer comes back in the same thread, from your own account.

In Conch, open Apps, choose Talk to me here, then Email.

1. Your email address. Type it, and Conch picks your mail service: Gmail, iCloud or Fastmail. For another service, choose Other and say where its mail lives.
2. Make an app password. An app password lets Conch into your mail without your real password, and you can take it back any time. Press Make one in Gmail (or iCloud, or Fastmail), name it "Conch", and paste the password into Conch. It's checked with your mail service as it lands.
3. Write to your assistant. You're in already: Conch sends you a hello, and shows the address to write to with Write an email.

Your first hello

Good to know

• With Gmail, it's part of Gmail. An email channel on Gmail is Gmail's Talk to me here in Apps: one card. If Gmail is connected with an app password already, turning on Talk to me here on its page uses the same one, in one press. The other way round, the channel's page offers Use it for Gmail.
• Only mail for Conch is read. Conch reads mail sent to your +conch address, from the last day, and files it in a Conch folder once it's handled. The rest of your inbox is never looked at.
• iCloud has no + addresses. With iCloud, write to yourself with "Conch" at the start of the subject.
• Outlook needs Microsoft's own sign-in. Since September 2024 Outlook.com takes no app passwords, and Conch can't do Microsoft's sign-in yet. Forward your Outlook mail to Gmail, iCloud or Fastmail and connect that.
• Conch checks who really sent it. A From line is easy to fake, so Conch believes it only when your mail service says the sender checked out, or when the email is in your own Sent mail. Anything else is left unread.
• Other people's mail is never read. Mail to your +conch address from someone else is left alone, unless you turn on An address just for Conch on the channel's page: then they get one polite reply and show up in Conch for you to Let in or Block. Lists, auto-replies and bounces are never answered.
• A forward is someone else's words. Forward an email to ask about it: your assistant reads it as it would a web page, and asks before acting on it.
• Threads are conversations. Reply in a thread to carry on; a new email starts a fresh conversation. Approvals are a number: the question lists its answers, and you reply with one's number (or yes, or no).
• App passwords need two-step sign-in. Gmail asks for 2-Step Verification and iCloud for two-factor authentication before they make one. Fastmail's Basic plan has none.
• Changing your Apple Account password takes back every iCloud app password: paste a new one in Conch.