Connecting your Gmail or Outlook mailbox
By Clint ParsleyLast updated
In short. Connect in Settings → Mailbox: one mailbox on Free, up to three per user on paid plans and trials. Your 1:1 and sequence emails send through your own account, capped at 250 to 1,000 per day for each mailbox depending on the kind of account, and replies land in your normal inbox.
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, Microsoft's list also includes reading your mail, which reply detection needs, and calendar access, which SEMAOS doesn't use (more on both 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 to send mail on your behalf, which is Google's gmail.send scope (listed in Google's Gmail API scopes as "Send email on your behalf"), and to see your email address, which is how SEMAOS learns which account you connected. 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. SEMAOS uses it only to find replies to emails you sent through SEMAOS, and it checks every working Outlook mailbox you connect this way. It reads the headers of every message that arrives in your inbox, including subjects, and never message bodies or attachments. When a message's conversation isn't already known to contain an email SEMAOS sent, which is true of most of your mail, it also reads the headers of up to 50 messages in that conversation, in any folder (Sent Items and Deleted Items included), to look for one it sent. Microsoft's list also shows calendar access, because SEMAOS requests it, but SEMAOS doesn't read or change your calendar.
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.
On the Free plan every email goes out from your connected mailbox. Settings → Sending shows that address and the From name your emails carry, which you can change there. It doesn't show a Reply-To or the reply detection switch on Free: both cover only email sent through SEMAOS's sending domain or your own verified domain, and replies to a mailbox email already come back to your inbox.
What is the daily cap?
SEMAOS caps each connected mailbox by the kind of account it is: 250 a day for a personal Outlook account, 400 for a personal Gmail account, and 1,000 for a Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account. If you connect more than one, each has its own cap. SEMAOS learns the kind when you connect, from what Google or Microsoft reports about the account, and the providers set their own limits:
| Account | Provider's own daily limit | SEMAOS's cap |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Gmail | About 500 (Google) | 400 |
| Google Workspace | 2,000 per user on paid accounts, 500 on trials (Google Workspace) | 1,000 |
| Personal Outlook.com | Not published; Microsoft says it is lower for non-subscribers and new accounts (Microsoft). We plan on about 300 | 250 |
| Microsoft 365 work account | Higher than personal accounts | 1,000 |
The work-account cap sits under what an established account allows, but not under every new one: a Google Workspace trial allows 500 a day, and a Microsoft 365 account set up recently can be held lower. If yours is new, keep your own daily total (sequence enrollments and one-off emails together) under your provider's limit. SEMAOS's enroll warning counts against SEMAOS's cap, not your provider's, and if your provider flags the mailbox for unusual volume, you lose far more sending than a slower day would cost.
A mailbox connected before SEMAOS knew the kind of account keeps a cap of 400 until you reconnect it. When reconnecting could change that cap, the mailbox's row in Settings → Mailbox shows a Reconnect Gmail or Reconnect Outlook button. A gmail.com or googlemail.com address doesn't get one for this, because a personal Gmail account has the same cap either way. Sign in with the same account, leave sending allowed, and SEMAOS sets the cap from what Google or Microsoft reports. The mailbox stays connected the whole time, and sequences that send from it carry on. For a personal Outlook account, 400 is more than Microsoft may allow, so reconnect it to get its 250 cap.
Settings → Usage shows how many emails each connected mailbox has sent today against its cap, and the date and time it resets in your account's time zone. Only email sent through your connected account counts toward it. Broadcasts and anything else SEMAOS delivers over its own email infrastructure never do, even from the same address.
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, one day's cap at a time.
Enrolling a large list into a sequence therefore 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 tells you up front roughly how many will carry into the following days.
How do replies work?
Replies go to your regular inbox, exactly like any email you sent by hand. On Outlook, SEMAOS also detects those replies and stops the sequence for that contact automatically. There is no setting for this: it works for every connected Outlook mailbox. (The reply detection switch under Settings → Sending covers sequence emails sent through SEMAOS's sending domain or your own verified domain instead.) Detection matches replies by conversation thread first, so a prospect replying from an alias address is still caught. Mail from the connected Outlook address itself never counts as a reply, so to try detection out, answer a sequence email from a different address.
Gmail reply detection isn't available yet. Reading Gmail replies needs a permission that Google lists among its restricted scopes, which require a security assessment, 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 does Settings → Mailbox show?
Settings → Mailbox lists every mailbox you've connected: the provider, the address, whether it's working, and how many emails it has sent today against its daily cap. One of them is marked Default. Your one-off emails send through it, and so does a sequence for the contacts you enroll. A one-off email can also go out through another of your mailboxes: pick it in the email's From list.
Make default hands that role to another working mailbox. Changing your default doesn't move contacts you already enrolled: they keep sending from the mailbox that was your default when you enrolled them. Disconnecting that mailbox does move them (see below). Contacts you enrolled before you connected any mailbox, and a few enrolled before October 2026, follow whichever mailbox is your default at the time.
How many mailboxes can I connect?
| Plan | Mailboxes per user |
|---|---|
| Free | 1 |
| Solo, Starter, Team, Business | 3 |
| 30-day trial | 3 |
The limit is per user, so on a team plan every member can connect their own. Each address belongs to one person in a workspace (see below). On a paid plan or a trial, Settings → Mailbox shows how many of your 3 are in use, and Add Gmail and Add Outlook connect another until you reach the limit. Then Add a mailbox is greyed out, and you disconnect one to make room. On Free, Add a mailbox is greyed out once your one mailbox is connected, and the page points you to the plans that allow more. A mailbox parked by a move to Free doesn't count toward the limit.
Can I switch to a different account?
Yes. If your plan has room, add the other account as another mailbox. It sits beside the ones you have, and you can make it your default.
At the limit (one on Free, three on paid plans), disconnect one under Settings → Mailbox first, then connect the new one. When a mailbox needs reconnecting, its Reconnect button is tied to that mailbox, so sign in to the same account you connected before. If you sign in as a different account, SEMAOS refuses the connection and explains why. Your mailbox stays as it was. To add that other account, use Add Gmail or Add Outlook instead.
Two people in the same workspace can't connect the same address. The first person to connect it holds it, and anyone else is asked to connect a different mailbox. If you and a teammate already shared an address before this rule existed, you both keep sending from it as before. One of you holds the address in SEMAOS and can reconnect it as usual. The other is asked for a different address the next time they reconnect.
What happens if I disconnect?
Disconnecting removes the stored grant and stops routing mail through that inbox. If it was your default and you have another working mailbox, that one becomes your default. Contacts whose sequence emails were going through the disconnected mailbox move to your default mailbox and carry on from there. If your default mailbox isn't working, what happens next depends on your plan:
- On a paid plan, one-off and sequence emails that use your account's default address send from your verified sending domain, or from the shared SEMAOS domain if you have none. A sequence that pins its own From keeps it.
- On the Free plan there is no fallback. One-off emails are refused until you reconnect, and contacts you enrolled in a sequence wait at their next email. When you reconnect, they pick up where they left off.
Broadcasts are unaffected either way, because they never sent through your mailbox. The confirm dialog under Settings → Mailbox says which of these applies to you.
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). SEMAOS notices the first time it tries to send through the mailbox, and that is also when it emails you about it, at the address you sign in with, so you hear even if you aren't in the app. You get one email per break; once you reconnect, a later break emails you again. Reconnect under Settings → Mailbox. See "What happens if I disconnect?" above for what sends in the meantime, and what waits for you to reconnect. Transient provider hiccups don't flip the state, so an error banner is worth acting on.
What if my mailbox says sending wasn't allowed?
A mailbox can be connected without permission to send, if sending was turned off on Google's permission screen (or by your Microsoft admin). SEMAOS refuses that connection now, but a mailbox connected that way earlier reads as connected while nothing can send from it. Its row in Settings → Mailbox says sending wasn't allowed and shows a Reconnect Gmail or Reconnect Outlook button, whatever the address. Sign in with the same account and leave sending allowed.
The first time SEMAOS tries to send through it, Google or Microsoft refuses the send. SEMAOS then marks the mailbox as needing a reconnect, as in the error case above, and emails you about it. On a paid plan, sequence emails that would have gone through it send from your workspace's sending address until you reconnect, except a sequence set to send only from this mailbox, which waits for it. On the Free plan they wait until you reconnect. No sequence step is skipped.