Which mail services draften can connect, in which way, and where the limits are. This holds everywhere: the assistant only creates drafts. It sends nothing and does not delete your mail — the one thing it ever deletes is its own older draft, when it writes it again.
Overview
| How it connects | Note | |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 (work and school accounts) | a registration for the organisation, or Connect Outlook | |
| Google Workspace (accounts with their own domain) | the organisation's service account, or Connect Gmail | |
| Seznam | IMAP with a login name and a password | tried for real |
personal Gmail (@gmail.com) | IMAP with an app password | |
| Kerio Connect | IMAP with a login name and a password | not yet tried for real |
| iCloud, Yahoo, Zoho, Fastmail | IMAP with an app password | should work, not tried |
| Exchange on your own server | IMAP with a login name and a password | should work, not tried |
| hosting and company servers with IMAP | IMAP with a login name and a password | depends on the server, see below |
personal Outlook (outlook.com, hotmail.com, live.com) | not possible | not even over IMAP |
Microsoft 365
- Only an organisation's work and school accounts in Microsoft 365. Personal
outlook.com,hotmail.comandlive.comaccounts cannot be connected — not even over IMAP, because Microsoft switched off password sign-in for them in September 2024. - Two routes: a registration for the organisation (an administrator sets it up once for all mailboxes, shared ones included; access can be narrowed with an
ApplicationAccessPolicy), or Connect Outlook (the mailbox owner signs in and allows access to their own mailbox only; the organisation needs its own client in How members sign in for this, and without it the button is not shown). The procedure: Microsoft 365. - Exchange on your own server (without Microsoft Graph) works only over IMAP — see below.
- Replying from an alias: the draft is written from the alias; whether Exchange also sends the message from it is Exchange's setting (
Set-OrganizationConfig -SendFromAliasEnabled $true). We have not yet tried this for real.
Google Workspace
- Only Google Workspace accounts with their own domain. You cannot sign in to draften with a personal Google account (
@gmail.com); you can, however, connect a personal Gmail over IMAP (below). - Two routes: the organisation's service account with domain-wide delegation (the Workspace administrator allows it once for the whole domain; Google does not have to verify it), or Connect Gmail (the organisation needs its own OAuth client in How members sign in, and without it the button is not shown; accounts outside your Workspace would require the client to be verified by Google). The procedure: Google Workspace.
- A draft you delete in Gmail is deleted by Gmail for good — draften can only tell that it has disappeared.
- Replying from an alias: the alias must be verified in Gmail under "Send mail as". We have not yet tried this for real.
- draften checks the mail at regular intervals; it does not use instant notifications from Google.
IMAP: Seznam, Kerio Connect, hostings, personal Gmail
You connect any mailbox with IMAP with a login name and a password: the server, the port, TLS, the login name and the password. The password is stored encrypted. The mailbox owner sets these on the mailbox's page; Test the connection tells you whether it works. The procedure: Mail access.
What the server must meet:
- Password sign-in. draften cannot use OAuth over IMAP. A server that has switched password sign-in off cannot be connected.
- Custom flags on messages (IMAP keywords). draften marks the mail it has handled with a flag bearing the assistant's name. A server that does not allow custom flags is not supported.
- Folders that draften finds: marked with their role (Drafts, Sent, Trash, Junk, Archive), or with the usual English or Czech name — Drafts / Koncepty, Sent / Sent Items / Odeslané, Trash / Deleted Items / Koš, Junk / Spam / Nevyžádaná pošta, Archive / Archiv. A folder with any other name is not found, and the draft has nowhere to go.
Limits:
- Threads are put together from the message headers (IMAP has no threads). A mail program that does not fill in the headers breaks a thread into single messages.
- The mail is checked at regular intervals.
- A new draft for the same message replaces the old one; on a server without the UIDPLUS extension only when nothing else in Drafts is waiting to be deleted.
By provider:
- Seznam — tried for real.
- Kerio Connect — IMAP over TLS (port 993) or STARTTLS (143) with the account's password. The folders have the usual names, and the server supports both custom flags and UIDPLUS. We have not yet tried it for real; the connection test shows whether it works. Watch out for a policy in Kerio Connect that forbids IMAP for the account or the user.
- Personal Gmail — the account must have 2-Step Verification, and IMAP must be enabled in the Gmail settings. Instead of the account's password, you enter an app password generated in the Google account.
- iCloud, Yahoo, Zoho, Fastmail (with an app password) and Exchange on your own server with IMAP and password sign-in should work the same way; we have not tried any of them for real.
What is not possible today
- Personal Microsoft accounts (
outlook.com,hotmail.com,live.com) — neither through Microsoft 365 nor over IMAP. - Signing in to draften with a personal Google account.
- An IMAP server that requires OAuth.
- Connecting at Microsoft or Google without the organisation's own app (with consent at sign-in only).