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Adoptiv

IMAP & SMTP

The connection for a mailbox nobody hosts for you. You type the hosts, the ports and the password, and we sign in for real before agreeing to keep them, so a typo is caught while somebody is still sitting at the form.

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Wiring a mailbox up by hand

saved
What you type
Password••••••••••••
IMAP hostimap.fastmail.com
IMAP port993
993 with TLS
SMTP hostsmtp.fastmail.com
SMTP port587
465 reads as implicit TLS
What the server proves before it agrees to keep them
1. Resolve both addressespass
imap.fastmail.com resolves to 103.168.172.45
a routable address, outside every reserved range
2. Sign in, then sign outpass
connect, then logout
signed in and signed out again. The credentials are worth keeping
connection stored, first pull queued
five mailboxes polled
Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Trash and Spam, every five minutes
no push at all
the one connection with nothing to subscribe to
no thread identifier
a message arrives here without a conversation of any kind
two flags out, three in
read and starred are pushed outward; read, starred and draft are read
sent is a place
a message is outbound because of the mailbox it was found in
your copy is filed
the raw message is appended to Sent and marked read, as a desktop client does
A real sign-in and sign-out runs against your incoming server first, and only then is the connection stored. After that it is polling, because there is nothing to push.
0
mailboxes checked every pass, sent among them
0
newest messages kept per mailbox
0
marks carried between this screen and the mail server

Product figures from the platform’s own defaults - not customer averages

The mechanism

How it works.

01

Where you point it is checked before anything connects

Both addresses you typed are looked up and refused if they land on loopback, a private range, the link-local block or anything reserved. A settings form is not a port scanner for the network we run in.

02

It signs in before it saves anything

A real login and logout runs against your incoming server first. A rejection comes back naming which thing is wrong, whether that is the password, the address, the port or the encryption setting, instead of a bare failure somebody has to guess at.

03

Sent is a place here, not a property

There is no marker on a message saying it was sent, so a message counts as outbound because of which mailbox it turned up in. That is why the sent mailbox is walked rather than inferred.

04

Your own copy has to be filed by hand, so we file it

Handing a message to an outgoing server leaves the sender's own sent mailbox empty, so the raw message is put there afterward and marked as read, the way any desktop client does it.

Where it sits

Two moments in every message.

Every message passes through the same seven. IMAP & SMTP is the lit ones, and everything either side of it is a different page in this category.

  1. 01
    Connect

    the account it syncs with

  2. 02
    Compose

    writing it, and from what

  3. 03
    Send

    leaving now, or on a schedule

  4. 04
    Arrive

    landing, and what it lands as

  5. 05
    Attach

    pinning it to the right record

  6. 06
    Book

    the meeting that comes of it

  7. 07
    Govern

    who may use what, and see what

The specifics.

8 facts
Setup
A form rather than a consent screen: address, password, both hosts and both ports, seven fields in all. Encryption is not one of them
Defaults
993 with TLS inbound and 587 outbound, both fixed by the form. Port 465 is read as implicit TLS where a server asks for it
Host guard
Loopback, private, link-local, carrier-grade and reserved addresses are all turned away
Cadence
Polled every five minutes. This is the one connection with no push at all
Window
Since the previous run, or ninety days on the first, keeping the newest two thousand per mailbox, and two thousand is a floor on that cap rather than a ceiling. Five mailboxes are walked, so one pass can take a good deal more than two thousand in total
Threading
None. A message arrives here without a conversation identifier of any kind
Write-back
Read and starred are pushed outward, probing the message's own mailbox first and a list of common names after
Bad password
The connection is switched off rather than retried, so nothing keeps hammering your mail server

More in Email & Calendar

12 capabilities

Webmail, four mailbox connections, tracking, calendar and meetings.

Calendar Sync

Book a slot while the customer is still on the line and the invitation is in their inbox before you say goodbye. What they change comes back when you sync.

Outlook & Microsoft 365

The mailbox stays connected, and a message somebody moved is not sitting here twice. Outlook and Microsoft 365 over Graph, picking up only what changed.

Exchange Sync

A Microsoft mailbox brings its diary and address book with it, and whether it sits in Microsoft 365 or on a server in your building is worked out for you.

Email Templates

Templates with merge variables, organized into groups and granted per team, so the answer your best rep writes becomes the answer everybody sends.

Template Permissions

Regulated copy stays with the people allowed to send it. Filing a template into a group is what shares it, so there is no second step for anybody to forget.

Open & Click Tracking

What does not count is the useful part: a rep opening their own message, a crawler, the same person twice in five minutes. A figure a supervisor can act on.

Snooze & Send Later

Park a thread and it comes back at the hour you named, unread, so nobody walks past it. Hold a send and it leaves at the hour you named, once, never twice.

Meeting Scheduling

A meeting agreed on a call is never lost because somebody else's service was slow. The booking is saved here first, then the room and the calendar entry.

Zoom

Move the meeting an hour and the Zoom room moves with it, on the link guests already have. Delete the booking and the room goes too, with nobody chasing it.

Google Meet

The join link is made by the calendar itself, on the same save that books the meeting, so nobody hunts for it later. One Google account is the whole setup.

Microsoft Teams

Pick Teams on a booking and the join link is written into the invitation guests receive, so nobody chases it in a follow-up. A room you own travels too.

Email-to-Record Matching

Mail files itself against the lead, on a rule short enough to print: the addresses on the lead, matched exactly. No domain guessing, and nothing to dispute.

Email & Calendar

See imap & smtp on your own floor.

Thirty minutes, your numbers and your data. We will set imap & smtp up live and you can decide from the thing itself rather than from this page.

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14-day trial · no card · migration included