Two-Way Email Sync: Seeing Replies Automatically
Connect your mailbox by IMAP so replies from contacts and leads show up in the CRM without manual copy-paste.
What inbound sync does
SMTP handles the CRM sending mail as you; this is the other direction — it reads the same mailbox and files any reply from a known contact or lead into that record's Email Log automatically, so you can see the whole conversation without checking your inbox separately.
Requirements
You need SMTP already connected first. Inbound sync reuses that mailbox's address; it's a second, optional connection to the same account using your provider's IMAP details (usually different host and port from SMTP — check your provider if you're unsure).
How to connect it
- Go to Settings → Email Sending and scroll to Inbound Mail Sync.
- Enter your IMAP host, port, and username, plus the mailbox password (an app-specific password if your provider requires one for IMAP access, e.g. Gmail or Microsoft 365).
- Tick Enable inbound sync and save — the connection is tested immediately, before anything is turned on, so a typo or wrong password is caught right away rather than failing silently later.
- Your IMAP password is stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM), the same way your SMTP password is, and only ever decrypted server-side at the moment of connecting.
What gets filed, and what doesn't
Only matched senders. A reply is filed against a record only if the sender's address already matches an existing contact or lead. Mail from anyone else in the mailbox — newsletters, cold outreach, anything unrelated — is left alone. Nothing is deleted, moved, or marked read in your actual mailbox.
A reply exits any active email sequence. If the sender is enrolled in a running sequence, replying counts as the strongest possible signal that it worked — the sequence stops for them immediately rather than continuing to send scheduled follow-ups to someone who already answered.
You're notified. Whoever owns the org gets a notification pointing straight at the contact or lead the reply came from.
Duplicates are prevented. Each message is checked against its Message-ID before filing, so a mail server that redelivers something, or a sync run that overlaps the previous one, never creates a second copy.
Sync schedule
Runs once a day alongside the CRM's other scheduled jobs (reminders, sequence sends, recurring invoices). It's not instant — a reply won't appear the second it lands, only after the next scheduled run.
If a connection fails
The mailbox is left disabled and the specific error (wrong password, unreachable host, etc.) is shown right on the settings page under Inbound Mail Sync, so you know exactly what to fix before trying again.
Available on every plan, including the trial and Starter.