Connect your own email account to PortaPro so emails you write to leads, deals, and customers go out from *your* address land in your Sent folder, thread naturally when the customer hits Reply, and ride your inbox's real deliverability reputation instead of a shared platform address.
Supported providers: Gmail (personal + Google Workspace), Outlook / Microsoft 365 (including outlook.com and hotmail.com), and Yahoo, AOL, GoDaddy Workspace, iCloud, Zoho, and any other custom SMTP host via app passwords.
Connections are personal to you each teammate connects their own inbox. What you connect is used to send *your* emails from lead and deal pages; a separate setting (Company Sending) controls the address invoices and other automated documents send from for the whole business.
What PortaPro can and can't do with your inbox
Every connection PortaPro offers is send-only. When you connect Gmail or Outlook, you're granting exactly one permission the ability to send email through your account on your behalf. For SMTP mailboxes (Yahoo, GoDaddy, etc.), you generate an "app password" that has the same send-only scope by design.
Can: Send email you compose inside PortaPro from your address. Emails sent this way land in your mailbox's Sent folder and thread naturally when the recipient replies.
Can't: Read your inbox. List messages. Modify or delete anything. Access contacts or calendars. Auto-forward. Send email you didn't personally compose or explicitly schedule (like a sequence step).
Your credentials OAuth tokens for Google/Microsoft, app passwords for SMTP are encrypted at rest with a dedicated key, stored server-side only, and never leave the server. The Settings page never shows or transmits them.
Not sure which option is yours?
Most people know their email address, not the company that runs it. A business address like `billing@yourcompany.com` could be run by Microsoft, Google, GoDaddy, or someone else, and the right button depends on which one.
| What PortaPro says | What to do |
|---|---|
| Your email runs on Google | Click Connect Gmail and sign in with your normal email and password. Nothing else to set up. |
| Your email runs on Microsoft 365 | Click Connect Outlook and sign in with your normal email and password. This covers Outlook, Hotmail, and most GoDaddy email. |
| Your email is Yahoo Mail (or AOL Mail, iCloud Mail, Zoho Mail, GoDaddy email) | Click Set up Yahoo Mail (or the matching button). The connect form opens with your provider and address already filled in, plus a link to create the app password. |
| This address only forwards mail | The address has no mailbox of its own; mail to it is passed along to another inbox. Connect that inbox instead. |
| Your email passes through a security filter | Your company screens its mail, which hides where the mailbox lives. Try Connect Outlook first, then Connect Gmail. |
| We don't have a shortcut for your email host | Click Other email, pick Other (custom SMTP), and enter the outgoing mail server from your email host. |
| We couldn't find email for … | Check the address for a typo. |
When you click Connect Gmail or Connect Outlook from these results, the Google or Microsoft sign-in opens with your address already filled in.
Checking your email changes nothing: PortaPro only reads the public record that tells other mail servers where to deliver your mail. You never need to touch DNS or your website settings to connect an inbox.
The Step-by-step guide for every email provider link on the same page opens this article.
Connect a Gmail or Google Workspace account
Which Google accounts work? Any @gmail.com address and any Google Workspace account (custom domains hosted on Google). If your business email is hosted somewhere else, you're on Outlook or SMTP, not this button.
Connect an Outlook or Microsoft 365 account
Connect Yahoo, AOL, GoDaddy, iCloud, Zoho, or custom SMTP
Any mailbox not on Google or Microsoft connects via SMTP with an app password the same standard your desktop email client (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird) uses.
An app password is a one-off password you create in your email provider's security settings specifically for use with PortaPro. It's separate from your regular login password, and you can revoke it any time without changing your main password.
Steps
| Provider | Preset SMTP host | Port |
|---|---|---|
| Yahoo Mail | `smtp.mail.yahoo.com` | 465 (SSL) |
| AOL Mail | `smtp.aol.com` | 465 (SSL) |
| GoDaddy Workspace Email (legacy) | `smtpout.secureserver.net` | 465 (SSL) |
| iCloud Mail | `smtp.mail.me.com` | 587 (STARTTLS) |
| Zoho Mail | `smtp.zoho.com` | 465 (SSL) |
| Other (custom SMTP) | *(you enter)* | 465 / 587 / 2525 |
Provider-specific notes
Yahoo & AOL: Both use the same generation flow (Account Security → Generate app password). Your normal login password won't work here app passwords are mandatory.
GoDaddy: GoDaddy has two email products. Legacy Workspace Email uses the preset above with your regular mailbox password. GoDaddy Microsoft 365 (their newer offering) is actually a Microsoft 365 mailbox behind the scenes use the Connect Outlook button instead for a much smoother experience with better deliverability. If you're not sure which you have, check where your webmail login page is: `email.godaddy.com` = Workspace (use SMTP), `outlook.office.com` = M365 (use Outlook button).
iCloud: Requires two-factor authentication on your Apple ID before you can generate app-specific passwords. Once 2FA is on, create the password at account.apple.com.
Zoho: Zoho requires app passwords when your account has two-factor auth enabled. If you don't use 2FA, your regular Zoho mailbox password works.
Custom SMTP: For any other provider, pick "Other (custom SMTP)" and enter the SMTP hostname and port from your provider's docs. PortaPro supports the three standard ports (465 for SSL, 587 for STARTTLS, and 2525 as a fallback). Hostnames must be public IP addresses and internal names like `localhost` are blocked.
The "How should this inbox be used?"prompt
Right after you connect a new inbox, PortaPro asks how you want to use it. This is a one-time question that shapes what the connection is available for.
You can change this any time by clicking Share with company (or Unshare) on the connection card.
Non-admins picking "Company" or "Both" don't auto-designate the sender instead, the connection becomes visible on the Company Sending page and an admin picks it there.
Sending a test email
Every connected inbox has a Send test email button on its card. Click it and PortaPro sends a short email from your connected address *to itself* you'll see it arrive in your inbox and appear in your Sent folder. This exercises the full send path (OAuth token refresh or app-password authentication, message building, actual API/SMTP call) so if anything is misconfigured, you find out here instead of when you try to send a real customer email.
If the test succeeds you'll see a green toast. If it fails, the error message tells you exactly what went wrong a revoked grant, a bad app password, a missing send scope, etc. See Troubleshooting for what each error means.
Sharing your inbox with the company
The Share with company toggle (available on any connection card) marks your inbox as eligible for use as the company's invoice sender. Sharing doesn't automatically make it the sender an admin has to designate it on Settings → Company Sending but it does put it in the shortlist of options there.
When you share, the connection card shows a purple Shared with company badge. If an admin designates it as the invoice sender, it also gets a green Invoice sender badge so you can tell at a glance what your inbox is being used for.
If you unshare an inbox that's currently the invoice sender, PortaPro clears the designation invoices go back to sending from the shared PortaPro address until an admin picks a new sender. You'll see a toast explaining this so nothing gets silently reconfigured.
Adding a second (or third) inbox
You can connect multiple inboxes to your account for example, your personal `@gmail.com` for cold outreach and your work `sales@company.com` for warm leads. On the Email Accounts page, use the Add Gmail, Add Outlook, or Add other buttons at the bottom of your connections list.
Each inbox connects independently and can have its own share setting.
One rule: the same mailbox can only be connected once per PortaPro account, and can't be connected by two different PortaPro users at the same time. If you try to connect an inbox someone else on your team already has, you'll see an error asking them to disconnect it first.
Choosing which inbox is your default sender
When you have more than one inbox connected, one of them is your Default sender. That's the inbox that will be selected in the composer when you write a new lead or deal email you can always pick a different one from the From dropdown, but the default is the starting point.
Every connection card has a Set as default button. Click it on the inbox you want as your default, and its card gets a blue Default sender badge. Your first connected inbox is automatically the default; if you disconnect it, PortaPro promotes your most recent remaining inbox so there's always exactly one default.
Sequences you enroll leads/deals in also send from your default at the moment of enrollment.
Reconnecting a broken inbox
Occasionally a connection breaks you change your Google password, revoke PortaPro's access, delete an app password, or your Google Workspace admin resets your OAuth grants in bulk. When that happens, the connection card flips to a Reauth needed state and the send buttons are replaced with a single Reconnect button.
Click Reconnect. For Gmail and Outlook, you go through the OAuth consent screen exactly like the first connect (nothing else changes same email, same shared/default settings). For SMTP inboxes, the connect dialog reopens pre-filled with your existing settings and you enter a fresh app password. Once verified, your connection goes back to active no other setup needed.
Meanwhile, if your inbox was designated as the company invoice sender, invoices automatically fall back to the shared PortaPro address (they *never* fail to send). You'll see a banner on Company Sending explaining what happened and prompting you to reconnect or pick a new sender.
Disconnecting an inbox
Click Disconnect on any connection card. PortaPro:
What sticks around: emails already sent from your inbox stay in your mailbox's Sent folder untouched. Activity timeline entries for those sends stay in PortaPro. Only the *ability to send new emails* from this inbox goes away.
For extra peace of mind: you can also revoke PortaPro's access directly at your email provider. Google: myaccount.google.com/permissions. Microsoft: myapps.microsoft.com (work/school) or account.microsoft.com (personal). SMTP: delete the app password wherever you created it.
How teammates connect (admin view)
Admins and owners see a Team email connections panel at the bottom of the Email Accounts page. This shows every active team member, their connection status (Active / Reauth needed / Not connected), and the email address they connected. It's read-only admins can see who's connected but cannot send on anyone's behalf and cannot see the content of anyone's emails.
Use this panel to spot teammates who haven't connected yet (so their outreach still goes from a generic PortaPro address) or whose connections are broken and need a reconnect.