Connect your Gmail
with an app password.
Your own Gmail address, your own mail server, and one app password. Three steps are enough to send email to your customers from the API, the dashboard or your AI assistant, next to WhatsApp, free on every plan.
The context
Your Gmail, your address, your reputation
UnlimitedMessaging does not hand you a sending address: it connects the one you already have. For a Gmail account, that goes through IMAP and SMTP, with a Google app password instead of your usual password.
The email channel works like our WhatsApp channel: you bring your own infrastructure. On WhatsApp, you link your own number by scanning a QR code. For email, you connect your own mailbox. Messages leave from your address, through your mail server, so your deliverability and your sender reputation stay yours.
Gmail, like any mailbox, is reached over two standard protocols: IMAP to read incoming mail and SMTP to send. When 2-Step Verification is on, Google asks IMAP/SMTP clients to use an app password rather than your account password. That is the one piece you need to create.
This guide walks through the three steps, explains what an app password is for, and covers what happens once your mailbox is connected: sending, inbox, webhooks, bounces. Everything below is free on every plan, the free plan included.
Why an app password
What the app password does for you
It is not an extra hoop: it is how Google lets an IMAP/SMTP client in without ever seeing your real password.
Google asks for it for IMAP/SMTP
With 2-Step Verification on, a mail client that signs in over IMAP/SMTP cannot type a verification code. Google gives it an app password instead, and that is what UnlimitedMessaging uses to reach your Gmail.
Your main password stays private
You never share your Google account password. The app password is a separate credential, created for this one use.
Revocable at any time
You can delete the app password from your Google account whenever you want. The connection stops right away, without touching your main password.
Step by step
Connect Gmail in three steps
A few minutes, from your Google account to the UnlimitedMessaging dashboard.
- 1
Turn on 2-Step Verification
In your Google account security settings, turn on 2-Step Verification if it is not on yet. App passwords are only available once it is enabled.
- 2
Create an app password
Go to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords, give the app password a name you will recognize (for example UnlimitedMessaging), and create it. Google shows a 16-character password: copy it.
- 3
Paste it in the dashboard
In the UnlimitedMessaging dashboard, open the "Connect an email" form, enter your Gmail address and paste the app password. The server settings are detected from your address.
Not on Gmail?
Your own domain or any IMAP/SMTP provider works the same way
Gmail is just the most common case. The connection relies on standard protocols, not on one provider.
Your own domain
An address on your company domain connects the same way: address, password, and the server settings are detected from the address.
Any IMAP/SMTP provider
If your mailbox offers IMAP and SMTP access, you can connect it. Your emails still leave from your address, through your provider's server.
Once connected
What changes once your Gmail is connected
Your mailbox becomes a channel, next to your WhatsApp number.
Emails leave from your own address
Your customers see your Gmail address, not ours. UnlimitedMessaging is only the transport: the address, the server and the reputation are yours.
A copy in your Sent folder
Every email sent through UnlimitedMessaging is copied to the Sent folder of your mailbox, so you find it in Gmail like any other email.
Incoming emails in the dashboard inbox
Replies and new emails show up in the dashboard inbox, grouped by thread. When you reply, the thread is kept.
A message.received webhook
Each incoming email can also be pushed to your webhook as a message.received event, with its subject, HTML body and attachments. Webhook reception is part of the Medium and Max plans.
Hard bounces pause the address for 30 days
When an address hard bounces, it is paused for 30 days for that mailbox, so you do not keep sending to it and hurt your sender reputation.
{
"recipient": "[email protected]",
"subject": "Your order is ready",
"text": "Hi, your order is ready for pickup."
}FAQ
Questions about Gmail and app passwords
Sources
Sources & references
To check the information in this article for yourself:
Written by
Ilian · Senior Software Engineer
A senior software engineer, he founds and runs several tech companies. He builds products around messaging APIs, automation and AI integration, and shares here what he learns while building.
Connect your Gmail and send from your own address.
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