Connecting your Gmail or Outlook mailbox

Your connected mailbox is SEMAOS's primary sending channel: 1:1 emails and sequence emails go out through your own Gmail or Outlook account, from your own address, using your own sending reputation. Connect it under Settings → Mailbox by picking Google or Microsoft and completing the provider's consent screen. This article covers what the connection can and can't do, the daily cap, and what to check when something looks off.

What does SEMAOS get access to?

You authorize through the provider's standard OAuth screen. SEMAOS never sees your password, and you can revoke access at any time from your Google or Microsoft account security page. The requested permissions cover sending mail on your behalf; for Outlook, reading your inbox is also requested so reply detection can work (more on that below).

What does the consent screen ask for?

You pick your account, then Google shows its permission screen with DevilDog Lab named as the app. It asks for one permission: sending mail on your behalf. There is no request to read your Gmail inbox and none for your calendar, both of which you can check on that screen before you approve it.

Outlook's screen names DevilDog Lab as a verified publisher and links to our terms and privacy statement. Click Accept to connect. Microsoft's list does include Read your mail, which is what makes Outlook reply detection possible. Unlike Gmail's request, that one can read your inbox, and it stays unused unless you turn reply detection on under Settings → Sending.

Which emails use the mailbox, and which don't?

One-off emails and sequence steps send through the connected mailbox. Broadcasts never do. A broadcast is one message to a whole list, which is bulk mail by definition, so it always goes through the SEMAOS platform channel and requires a paid plan or trial. This split is deliberate: it keeps your personal address sending personal-looking volume while the platform absorbs the bulk traffic.

What is the daily cap?

SEMAOS caps mailbox sending at 400 emails per day per user, for both Gmail and Outlook. The providers' own limits vary (consumer Gmail allows roughly 500 per day, Google Workspace roughly 2,000, Outlook somewhere between 300 and 1,000 depending on the tenant), and SEMAOS can't reliably tell which kind of account you connected. One conservative number keeps your account safely under every variant, because a provider flagging your mailbox for unusual volume is far more costly than a slower send day.

What happens when I hit the cap?

Nothing is lost. Sends past the cap wait and go out the next day, once the count resets at midnight UTC. A sequence step that can't send today pauses on that contact and picks it up on the next day's run, then the sequence carries on from there. A backlog larger than a single day's cap drains over several days, 400 at a time.

So enrolling a large list into a sequence never fails, though part of it may take a few days to finish sending. When you enroll a list bigger than what your mailbox can still send today, SEMAOS says up front roughly how many will carry into the following days, so the pacing is never a surprise.

How do replies work?

Replies go to your regular inbox, exactly like any email you sent by hand. On Outlook, SEMAOS can also detect those replies and stop the sequence for that contact automatically; turn this on under Settings → Sending. Detection matches replies by conversation thread first, so a prospect replying from an alias address is still caught.

Gmail reply detection isn't available yet. Google reclassified the required permission into its most restricted tier, and SEMAOS has deferred that certification. On Gmail, mark replies by pausing or unenrolling the contact manually.

Are opens and clicks tracked on mailbox sends?

Not by default. Tracking pixels and rewritten links are bulk-mail machinery, and 1:1 mail deliverability is usually better without them. If you want open and click data on mailbox sends, both toggles are under Settings → Sending and apply tenant-wide. Platform (broadcast) sends always track.

Can I add a signature?

Yes. Each user sets their own under Settings → Signature, and templates place it with the {{system.signature}} merge field. Sequence and 1:1 templates can share one template while each sender's own signature fills in.

What if my mailbox shows an error?

The connection banner flips to an error state only when the mailbox is genuinely unusable, which almost always means the provider invalidated the refresh token (a password change, a security review, or a revoked grant). Reconnect under Settings → Mailbox; queued work picks back up once the connection is healthy. Transient provider hiccups don't flip the state, so an error banner is worth acting on.