IMAP FAQ
Common questions about IMAP email integration with Missive.
Do you support ProtonMail account?
Unfortunately, you cannot connect ProtonMail accounts to Missive.
As explained on this page, the way to use ProtonMail with desktop email apps is by installing the ProtonMail Bridge. This bridge is an application that must be installed on the same computer as the email app used to read and send emails (Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc).
In our case, Missive is a cloud application that runs on servers. Thus, it’s not possible for us to install and run the ProtonMail Bridge on our servers.
Do you support Zoho email account?
Yes, you need to select the IMAP option after clicking to add your account in the Accounts section of Missive's preferences.
See this page for the IMAP / SMTP connection details you need to enter in Missive.
Depending on your Zoho settings -- notably Two Factor Authentication -- Zoho may refuse to connect your account to Missive with your main Zoho password. In such cases, you need to generate an app-specific password for Missive instead of using your main account password.
How can I connect an AOL email account?
To connect an AOL account to Missive, you need to select the IMAP option when adding an account and use AOL’s IMAP and SMTP details.
Also, you may be required to enable two-step verification on your AOL account and generate a third-party app password for Missive (instead of using your main AOL password).
How can I connect a Yahoo email account?
To connect a Yahoo account to Missive, you need to select the IMAP option when adding an account and use Yahoo’s IMAP and SMTP details.
Also, you may be required to enable two-step verification on your Yahoo account and generate a third-party app password for Missive (instead of using your main Yahoo password).
Can I change the hostname of my IMAP or SMTP account?
Missive does not let you modify the hostname of an IMAP or SMTP account directly in the interface. Changing a hostname in-place is risky because the new hostname could point to a completely different email account, which would corrupt existing Missive conversations.
Contact support@missiveapp.com and tell us the new hostname you want to set for IMAP and/or SMTP, and which accounts are affected. Do not send your password -- only the hostname. We will check whether we can safely change the hostname in-place, or whether you'll need to connect the account as a new account instead.
Should I use IMAP or POP?
Use IMAP. POP is an older, more restricted protocol and we strongly recommend against it.
With IMAP, your emails are stored on the server and accessible from any device. POP downloads emails to a single device and removes them from the server, which means you lose access from other devices and risk losing emails if that device is lost or crashes.
IMAP also provides two-way synchronization: read/unread status, starred or flagged emails, and folder organization all stay in sync. POP supports none of this -- no folders, no state sync.
For the best experience, we recommend Google Workspace (Gmail) or Office 365 (Outlook), as these are the two email servers Missive is most deeply integrated with.
How can I fix the 'Mailboxes not configured' or 'Mailboxes not defined' error?
This error means your IMAP server has not defined folders for specific actions -- for example, a Trash folder to trash emails or an Archive folder to archive them.
The owner of the email account must open their Missive settings on the Accounts tab, select the account, select the Mailboxes tab and make sure there is a mailbox selected for each mailbox type (Archive, Sent, Trash and Spam). You may need to create a new mailbox if none are available.
Why is there a delay between my webmail and Missive?
Actions are synchronized between Missive and your webmail, but IMAP is an older protocol and this process can take time. It is normal for synchronization to take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes.
Why is search slow or returning incomplete results for my IMAP account?
Search performance depends on your email service provider. Generic IMAP servers often have poor search capabilities compared to Gmail and Office 365. Some providers offer a setting to enable "search indexing," which helps, but it still may not match the quality of major providers.
Email clients like Outlook and Apple Mail feel faster because they download all emails to your device and search locally. Missive is a cloud-based collaboration tool, so everything is stored on our servers. For now, we rely on the search functionality provided by your email server. Gmail, Office 365, and Fastmail have excellent search; most other providers do not.
We do not have a timeline for indexing and searching emails on our own servers.
How can I improve IMAP search performance?
The IMAP extension that can significantly improve search speed is SEARCH=FUZZY (RFC 6203). Few independent email providers support it by default.
Fastmail supports it and offers search performance comparable to Gmail and Office 365.
Some web hosting providers run Dovecot -- the most popular IMAP server software -- which supports SEARCH=FUZZY since version 2.1, but the extension must be manually enabled. If your host uses Dovecot, you can ask them to enable fuzzy search support. The following Dovecot documentation pages are useful references to share with them:
You can also find a list of supported IMAP extensions at imapwiki.org/Specs.
If search quality is a priority, switching to Gmail, Office 365, or Fastmail will give you the best results.
Why is my IMAP email account disconnected from Missive?
Missive disconnects your email account(s) if it cannot connect to your server for 30 consecutive minutes. If this is a temporary issue, you just need to click Reconnect on the yellow banners to open the Credentials settings panel, then click Reconnect. This will attempt to reconnect your accounts.
I get an invalid SSL / TLS certificate error when trying to add my email account, what should I do?
If you receive this error when adding your email account:
Your SSL / TLS certificate is invalid, so Missive can’t establish a secure IMAP connection. If this is not a concern to you, choose “none” under Encryption.
It means you probably have an expired certificate or a self-signed certificate. You can contact support@missiveapp.com to know why your certificate is invalid.
Expired certificate
If your server’s SSL/TLS certificate is expired you should contact your certificate authority to get a new one.
Self-signed certificate
Missive currently refuses to connect to IMAP servers with a self-signed certificate, because if we allowed it, it would mean our connections to users’ IMAP servers wouldn’t actually be secure. A self-signed certificate can be generated by anyone, so if our algorithm accepted any self-signed certificate, it means our connection to your server could be intercepted by a hacker who could swap your certificate for theirs, and Missive wouldn’t notice because it accepts anybody’s self-signed certificate. Simply put: someone could read your email data over our connection to your server, and neither us or you would notice.
If a server’s SSL/TLS certificate is self-signed, it is not signed by a recognized certificate authority. This is often the case on default server installations.
However, people using a self-signed certificate and not planning on purchasing an authority-signed one for their IMAP server is something common. To remain secure by default while supporting this setup, what email applications usually do when people connect an IMAP account is:
First, refuse to accept a self-signed certificate
Show a warning to the user
Offer the user a checkbox that says “Allow the use of my self-signed certificate”
If checked, the setting will be remembered for this user only
The procedure above is exactly what we plan to do. We have no ETA yet, but we will offer support for self-signed certificates at some point.
Note that if the above isn’t a concern to you, you should be able to successfully import your IMAP account by choosing “none” as the Encryption method. Same for SMTP.
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