Email Accounts

The Email Accounts tab is where you connect Ishvana’s email module to your actual email accounts. It only matters if you use the Email module — if you don’t, you can ignore this tab entirely. If you do, this is where you set up the SMTP credentials for sending messages and the IMAP credentials for reading them. The tab supports multiple accounts, so if you have a separate account for author correspondence and a personal account, you can configure both and switch between them in the Email module. The setup is ordinary email account configuration — nothing Ishvana-specific beyond putting it in the same app as your writing — and if you’ve ever configured Thunderbird or Apple Mail, the fields here will be familiar.

Why email lives in Ishvana at all

A fair question, because email is a solved problem and most authors don’t need another email client. The answer is the same answer that applies to every non-writing feature in Ishvana: marketing. Author email correspondence — agent queries, editor follow-ups, beta reader coordination, newsletter management, press outreach — is part of the career, and having it next to your writing instead of in a separate app cuts the friction out of the context switch.

If you exclusively write in Ishvana and handle email entirely in Gmail, nothing requires you to configure email accounts here. The tab sits idle and doesn’t affect the rest of the app. But if you want to consolidate the workflow, the option is here.

Provider presets

The tab ships with presets for common email providers, each pre-filling the SMTP and IMAP server details so you don’t have to look them up:

Gmail. Uses Google’s SMTP (smtp.gmail.com:587 with STARTTLS) and IMAP (imap.gmail.com:993 with SSL). Requires an App Password for use with third-party clients (Google disables regular password authentication for external apps).
Outlook / Office 365. Microsoft’s SMTP (smtp.office365.com:587 with STARTTLS) and IMAP (outlook.office365.com:993 with SSL). Uses your normal password unless your organization requires modern authentication.
Fastmail. Fastmail’s SMTP (smtp.fastmail.com:465 with SSL) and IMAP (imap.fastmail.com:993 with SSL). Requires an app password (regular account password doesn’t work for IMAP).
Proton Mail. Requires Proton Mail Bridge to be running locally — Proton’s encryption model doesn’t allow direct IMAP/SMTP access from third-party clients, and the Bridge translates between the encrypted Proton API and standard protocols.
Custom. A fallback option where you enter SMTP and IMAP details manually.

Picking a preset pre-fills the server, port, and security fields. You still have to enter your own username and password.

Account fields

For each account you configure, the full set of fields:

Identity

Display name. How your name appears on outgoing messages. “Jane Author” or “Author Name” or your actual name.
Email address. Your address. This is also used as the username for most providers unless you override it.
Reply-to (optional). A different address that replies should go to. Useful if you want messages sent from a primary address but replies routed to a different inbox.

SMTP (sending)

Server. The outgoing mail server hostname. Pre-filled by the provider preset.
Port. Usually 587 (STARTTLS) or 465 (SSL). Pre-filled.
Security. STARTTLS, SSL/TLS, or None. Pre-filled. Do not use None for anything other than localhost testing.
Username. Usually your email address. Override if the provider uses a different login name.
Password. Your sending password or app password. Encrypted at rest.

IMAP (receiving)

Server. The incoming mail server hostname. Pre-filled.
Port. Usually 993 (SSL) or 143 (STARTTLS). Pre-filled.
Security. Same options as SMTP. Pre-filled.
Username. Usually your email address. Override if needed.
Password. Your receiving password or app password. Often the same as SMTP but not always.

Polling

Poll interval. How often Ishvana checks for new messages. Default is every 5 minutes. Lower intervals use more bandwidth and burn through rate limits faster; higher intervals make new message detection slower.
Enable IDLE push (optional). Some IMAP servers support the IDLE extension, which lets the server push notifications to the client when new messages arrive without polling. When supported, it’s more efficient than polling. Ishvana detects support automatically on the first connection.

Folders

Inbox folder. The folder name for incoming messages. Default is INBOX for most providers. Gmail uses INBOX but adds labels on top.
Sent folder. Where sent messages are stored after sending. Defaults vary by provider.
Drafts folder. Where in-progress drafts live. Usually doesn’t need changing.
Trash folder. Where deleted messages go. Usually doesn’t need changing.

Testing a configured account

Every account has a Test button. Clicking it runs two tests in sequence:

SMTP test. Connects to the outgoing server, authenticates, sends a test message to yourself, and verifies delivery.
IMAP test. Connects to the incoming server, authenticates, lists folders, reads a handful of recent messages, and verifies retrieval.

If both tests pass, the account is marked green and is ready to use in the Email module. If either fails, the failing test shows a specific error message pointing at the problem — wrong password, wrong server, firewall blocking the port, certificate issue, etc.

Test every account after you configure it. Email settings are the kind of thing where a typo in the server name doesn’t surface as an error until you try to use the account in real work, and finding out mid-launch that your email isn’t configured is a bad time.

Multiple accounts

You can add as many accounts as you want. Each one is listed in a table with its name, address, provider, status (green checkmark if tested and working, red X if not), and action buttons (edit, delete, test).

The Email module uses the accounts you’ve configured — when you compose a message, you pick which account to send from. When you receive messages, all accounts are polled in parallel and the inboxes appear in the module’s inbox list.

Deleting an account

The Delete button on any account prompts for confirmation and then removes the account from Ishvana’s configuration. Your actual email on the provider is untouched — Ishvana just stops polling for it and sending through it.

Deleting an account does not delete the locally-cached messages for that account. If you want to also remove the local cache, there’s a checkbox on the delete prompt that says “also delete local messages.” Check it to clean up fully.

Data stored locally

Ishvana maintains a local cache of messages it has retrieved via IMAP. The cache lives in data/email/ and contains the subject, sender, date, and body of messages you’ve loaded in the Email module. This makes the inbox fast to open — you’re not waiting on IMAP for every click — and allows offline access to messages you’ve already seen.

The cache is populated lazily. Ishvana doesn’t mirror your entire mailbox on first connection; it fetches recent messages and then fetches others on demand as you click on them.

The cache doesn’t sync back to IMAP. Ishvana is a read-mostly client. Deleting a message in Ishvana’s inbox doesn’t delete it on the server. Archiving in Ishvana doesn’t archive on the server. The Email module is designed for reading and composing, not for managing your mailbox state — that still happens in your canonical email client.

What’s not on this tab

Email templates. Email module → Templates handles the template system for canned responses and author outreach.
Sequences and automations. The full email workflow (sequences, drip campaigns, scheduled sends) happens in the Email module itself.
OAuth flows. Ishvana doesn’t support OAuth authentication for email providers yet. Use app passwords where the provider offers them.

What’s next

Email module The full email feature documentation.

Licensing Next settings tab.