Connecting Your Email (SMTP & IMAP)
Send from your own mailbox and read replies back into ClientTether — required for Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com and other consumer addresses.
1Why connect your own mailbox
By default ClientTether sends email from its own mail servers on your behalf. Connecting your own mailbox (SMTP for sending, IMAP for reading) changes two things: email goes out through the provider that actually owns your address, which is what Gmail, Outlook and the rest now expect, and replies to your contacts land in the contact’s history because ClientTether can read your inbox.
Consumer email addresses must be connected
If your user’s email is on a consumer provider — Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com/Hotmail, AOL and similar — ClientTether refuses to send until a working connection is configured, with the message “You must configure SMTP before sending an email because you have a Consumer Email Domain.” That’s deliberate: those providers reject or spam-folder mail sent for their addresses from unrelated servers. Company domains aren’t affected.
2Setting it up
Go to Settings → Email (SMTP & IMAP), switch on Enable SMTP and IMAP, and pick a Predefined Setting:
| Option | What happens |
|---|---|
| Gmail (Auth Process) | Sign in with Google and grant access. No passwords typed into ClientTether. |
| Outlook via OAuth2 | Sign in with Microsoft and grant access. Use this for Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com; the older plain Outlook option is disabled. |
| iCloud | Fills in Apple’s servers; you supply your address and an app-specific password. |
| Custom | For any other provider or an Exchange server: enter the SMTP host and port, IMAP host and port, email and password yourself. |
Two extra switches on the same tab: Read Email turns on the IMAP side (incoming replies into history), and Synchronize Calendar lets you sync the calendar that comes with the same account. Save, then send yourself a test email from a contact profile.
3Disconnecting
Switch the tab off to stop ClientTether using the connection. To revoke the permission on the provider’s side as well, the tab lists the steps: in Google, Account Settings → Connected Apps & Sites → Revoke Access; in Microsoft, Account Settings → Privacy, then remove the app.
4Troubleshooting
“You must configure SMTP before sending an email”
Your user email is on a consumer domain. Connect it as above, then try again.
Emails send, but replies don’t appear on the contact
Read Email is off, or the IMAP host/port is wrong for a Custom setup.
Gmail or Microsoft sign-in keeps failing
Revoke ClientTether’s access on the provider side (steps above) and run the sign-in again.
5Related pages
- Integrations Overview — Email Domain Registration for Enterprise owners.
- Calendars — calendar sync.