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Guide

Connect a company inbox: the morning summary on a private server

Not every inbox lives at Google or Microsoft. If yours runs on a company server, InboxBriefs can still read it, over IMAP.

Danny·June 28, 2026·5 min read
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If your inbox is hosted on a company server, connect it over IMAP: you enter your address and password, InboxBriefs detects the server, encrypts the password at rest, and sends you the same prioritized summary as Gmail or Outlook.

Key takeaways

  • Company inboxes connect over IMAP, the universal protocol of email
  • The server is detected automatically (ISPDB, autoconfig, DNS, host conventions)
  • The IMAP password is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, never in clear text
  • The digest, rules, agenda and chatbot work just like on Gmail or Outlook

Plenty of companies host their email on their own server: self-hosted Exchange, Postfix, Zimbra, Horde, or a mailbox provided by a host. These systems offer no "sign in with Google" button, and most consumer tools stop there. InboxBriefs, however, speaks the universal protocol of email: IMAP.

Why a private server makes things harder

On Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo, the connection goes through OAuth: you authorize the app in one click, without ever handing over your password. A company server doesn't expose that mechanism. The standard access is IMAP with an address and a password, the same protocol your mail client (Thunderbird, Apple Mail, desktop Outlook) already uses behind the scenes.

Automatic server detection

The usual friction is that nobody knows their IMAP server address by heart. InboxBriefs finds it for you: from your address, it queries the Mozilla community database (ISPDB), the domain's autoconfiguration files, dedicated DNS records, then the most common host conventions. You only enter the server address by hand if nothing answers.

  • You only enter your address and your password
  • The IMAP server is detected automatically in most cases
  • The password is encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM), never stored in clear text
  • The connection is used only to read your emails: no sending, no deleting
  • The spam folder is scanned just like on other providers

The same digest as Gmail or Outlook

Once connected, your company inbox gets exactly the same treatment as the others: urgent, important and FYI sorting, plain-language priority rules, an agenda that turns emails into tasks, and a chatbot to query your summary. You can even combine this inbox with Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo accounts in a single summary.

Tip: if your server offers dedicated app passwords, create one for InboxBriefs instead of using your main password. You can revoke it anytime without changing your password.

The 14-day free trial (14 summaries, no credit card) lets you test the approach on your real company inbox before committing.

Frequently asked questions

Any server that exposes the IMAP protocol: self-hosted Exchange, Postfix, Dovecot, Zimbra, Horde, or your host's mailbox. If your webmail runs on IMAP, which it almost always does, InboxBriefs can connect to it.

Yes. It's encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, the same key as OAuth tokens, and only used for reading. For extra peace of mind, use a dedicated app password if your server offers one.

In most cases you don't need to: InboxBriefs detects it from your email address. The host and port fields only appear if autodiscovery fails.

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