How do I send and receive emails via SMTP and IMAP ?

SparrowDesk lets you link almost any mailbox by entering its SMTP (outgoing) and IMAP (incoming) settings.

• Sending – Every reply you write in SparrowDesk is delivered through your SMTP server.
• Receiving – SparrowDesk checks your mailbox over IMAP every few minutes and pulls new messages into the conversation view.

Prepare the details you’ll need

Before you open SparrowDesk, collect the following from your mail provider:

• Email address you’ll send from
• Display name (e.g., “Support Team”)
• SMTP host, port, username, and password
• IMAP host, port, username, and password
• An app-specific password if two-factor authentication is turned on (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.)

If you don’t know these values, check your provider’s help pages or ask your IT admin. SMTP/IMAP information is different for every service.

Refer this article for finding the SMTP/IMAP informations

Add the mailbox inside SparrowDesk

1. Go to Settings → Email Setup and click Add Email.
2. Leave Connection Type set to Basic
3. Enter the email address and the “From” name exactly as you want customers to see them.
4. Fill in the SMTP server and port.
5. Fill in the IMAP server and port.
6. Give the username and password. How to generate the username and password for Google Workspace accounts.
7. Click Add Email.
8. SparrowDesk will test the connection to both servers and confirm when everything works.

If you see “Internal Error” or “Inbox Checking Settings Incorrect”

These messages mean SparrowDesk couldn’t log in or reach the server.

1. Re-verify every hostname, port, username, and password—one typo blocks the test.
2. Make sure IMAP is enabled in the mailbox settings (Gmail disables it for new accounts).
3. Use an app password if two-factor authentication is active.
4. Switch the security option to Auto if you’re unsure which TLS setting your server requires.

If you know which mode your provider requires, select it directly: choose STARTTLS with port 587 or SSL with port 465. SparrowDesk connects using exactly the mode you pick.

A separate help-center article (“Why am I receiving an Internal Error…”) walks through each cause in detail.

Special case: Microsoft Exchange

On-premise Exchange servers often use custom hostnames such as my-exchange-server.company.com. Ask your Exchange admin for the exact SMTP and IMAP addresses. If your organization allows it, SparrowDesk’s native Microsoft OAuth connector is simpler and more reliable than manual SMTP.

If you need to change the password later, open Email Setup, click Reconnect, and enter the new credentials

Import Past Emails From a Connected Mailbox

If emails didn't come into SparrowDesk for a while, for example because the connection broke, you can import them again from the mailbox. You can also use this to bring in recent email history when you first connect a mailbox.

What You Need First

• Admin or owner access.
• A mailbox that SparrowDesk reads directly, through IMAP or by signing in to your email account. Mailboxes connected through email forwarding can't be re-imported. For these, the import option is shown as disabled, with the reason.

Import emails

1. Open your email connections and choose the import option next to the mailbox. You can also start an import from the mailbox's detail page.
2. Choose the start and end date and time for the emails you want to import. The window can be up to 7 days, and it's set to the last 24 hours by default.
3. Start the import.

You can follow the progress while the import runs, and cancel it at any time. When it finishes or fails, admins and owners get an email. It goes to the same people who receive alerts about the email connection.

How imported emails behave

• No duplicates: emails already in SparrowDesk are skipped, so it's safe to import a window that overlaps one you imported before.
• Original dates: conversations are dated from when the email was originally sent, not from when it was imported.
• No automatic replies or actions: imported emails don't send acknowledgements to customers, don't get AI Agent replies, and don't trigger workflows that run when a conversation is created.
• History before connecting: the window can start before you connected the mailbox.