Mailbox#
Alfred can read a mailbox over IMAP, classify what it finds, and match it to your pipeline.
Read-only, always
Alfred never marks, moves, deletes or sends anything. It opens the folder read-only and closes it.
Connecting#
Settings → Mailbox:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Host / port | e.g. imap.gmail.com / 993 |
| Username | Your address |
| Password | An app password, not your account password |
| Folder | INBOX by default |
| Look back | How many days each sync reaches back |
Enable 2FA, then create an app password.
Host imap.gmail.com, port 993.
Host outlook.office365.com, port 993. Many tenants disable basic IMAP
auth — if yours does, this won't work without an administrator enabling it.
Any IMAP server works. Fastmail: imap.fastmail.com:993 with an app
password.
Press Test mailbox to verify before saving. Alfred reports the folder and how many messages it holds.
Syncing#
Inbox → Sync mailbox fetches everything newer than your lookback window,
deduplicates on Message-ID, and — if triage is on — classifies each new
message into one of:
application_confirmation · interview_invite · rejection · offer ·
recruiter_outreach · assessment · other
Each classification carries a confidence. Job-board digests and newsletters are marked not job-related and filed away.
Matching#
Alfred links an email to an application only when both hold:
- the model's confidence is at least 0.75, and
- the detected company resolves to one already in your pipeline (matched loosely — case, punctuation and legal suffixes are ignored, so "Acme" matches "Acme Technologies, Inc.").
Everything else waits in Needs review, where you can link it, create a new application from it, or ignore it.
Triaged recruiter mail, classified and matched against the pipeline.
Stage changes are always yours
A triaged email can suggest a stage — an interview invitation implies screening or technical — but Alfred never applies it. Acting on a misclassification would silently corrupt your funnel, so the suggestion is shown and you decide.
Cost#
With triage on, each new email is one small AI call. If you sync a busy mailbox with a 30-day lookback for the first time, that's one call per message. Turn Classify new mail with AI off to fetch without classifying, or narrow the lookback.
Privacy#
Message bodies are stored in your local database. They are sent to your configured AI provider only when triage is enabled — so with a local OpenAI-compatible endpoint, your mail never leaves the machine. Alfred strips quoted replies, signatures and long tracking URLs before anything is sent.