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Open Net Worth Docs

Email

Connect your mailbox and Lucius can read the emails your bank, card issuer and broker already send you — purchase alerts, transfer notices, trade confirmations — and turn them into transactions. It can also send email from the same address when you ask it to.

Setup takes about five minutes. You need two things: your email address and an app password from your email provider.

1. Get an app password

An app password is a separate password your provider generates for one app. Use it instead of your normal password — most providers refuse a normal password here once two-step verification is on, and you can revoke an app password at any time without changing your real one.

ProviderWhere to create one
GmailTurn on 2-Step Verification in your Google Account, then go to Google Account → Security → App passwords (or search “App passwords” in your Google Account). Name it “Open Net Worth” and copy the 16-character code.
iCloudappleid.apple.com → Sign-In and Security → App-Specific Passwords → generate one.
FastmailSettings → Privacy & Security → Manage app passwords → create one with access to Mail (IMAP/POP/SMTP).
Outlook / HotmailMicrosoft account → Security → Advanced security options → App passwords (only shown once two-step verification is on). See the note under Troubleshooting.
OtherLook for “app password”, “app-specific password” or “IMAP access” in your provider’s security settings.

Copy it somewhere safe for a minute — most providers only show it once.

2. Add the Email connector

  1. Open Connectors in the sidebar, click Browse & add, choose Data sources, click Email, then Add connector.
  2. Under Provider, click your provider’s chip — Gmail, Outlook, iCloud or Fastmail. That fills in all the server settings for you. Using another provider or your own mail server? Click Custom and enter its IMAP host and port (usually 993) and SMTP host and port (usually 587).
  3. Email / username — your full email address.
  4. App password — paste the password from step 1.
  5. Mail folder — leave it as INBOX to let Lucius see all your mail, or see Limit what Lucius can see below.
  6. Click Save.

The same address and password are used for both reading (IMAP) and sending (SMTP) — you never enter them twice.

3. Check that it works

Ask Lucius something like:

Search my email from the last 7 days for card or bank notifications.

If it lists messages, you’re connected. If it reports an error, the same error appears as Last error in the Email connector’s settings (⋯ → Edit configuration) — see Troubleshooting.

4. Log transactions automatically (optional)

On the Email connector’s page, click Automate (or Automate with a template inside its settings). That opens the Auto-log transactions from email Automation as a draft — click Create automation to turn it on. Once on: every 12 hours, Lucius reads new bank, card and trade confirmation emails, logs them with the payee resolved, and messages you a summary of what it logged. Each run reads the mail since the last run that finished, so changing the schedule never skips any.

Running it twice over the same email never books it twice — each transaction remembers which email it came from. Details, and how to change the schedule or approval mode, are in Automations.

You don’t need the Automation to use email — you can always just ask: “log the purchases from my card emails this week.”

Limit what Lucius can see

With INBOX, Lucius can search all of your incoming mail (it only reads the messages it decides are relevant, but it can see any of them). If you’d rather it see only financial mail:

  1. In your email app, create a folder or label — for example Finance.
  2. Add a filter that moves (or, in Gmail, labels) emails from your bank, card issuer and broker into it.
  3. Set Mail folder on the Email connector to that name, exactly as spelled — Finance.

Lucius then reads only that folder.

What Lucius can and can’t do with your mailbox

  • Reading never changes anything. The mailbox is opened read-only: nothing is marked read, moved, flagged or deleted.
  • It looks before it downloads. A search fetches only sender, subject and date; Lucius then opens just the messages that matter.
  • Attachments are never opened, only the text of the email, and a very long email is cut short before it reaches the AI model.
  • Nothing runs in the background unless you set up an Automation. Without one, your mail is only read when you ask.
  • Sending only happens when you ask for it — but check your approval setting. In a conversation set to Manually approve, Lucius shows you the recipient and message and waits for your approval. In Automatically approve (what a new conversation starts in) it sends without asking. To be asked every time, wherever you are, open the Email connector’s Tool permissions and set the send tool to Needs approval — see Permissions.
  • Email content is treated as untrusted. An email can’t instruct Lucius to do anything; it’s read as data only.

Where your password is stored

On this machine only. It’s never sent to Lucius or the AI model and never included in an export, and it’s left out of a sanitised backup like every other connector credential (see Backup and restore). The field hides it by default; you can reveal it to check what’s saved, and that reveal is logged.

To stop using email, Pause or Remove the connector from its page — and revoke the app password at your provider if you no longer need it.

Troubleshooting

“Authentication failed” / “Invalid credentials”

  • You used your normal password — create an app password (step 1) and paste that instead.
  • The app password was pasted with a space or line break at the end; paste it again.
  • Gmail: if your Gmail settings still show Forwarding and POP/IMAP → IMAP access, make sure it’s enabled.
  • Outlook / Hotmail: Microsoft is phasing out password sign-in for third-party mail apps. If an app password is refused, your account may only allow Microsoft’s own sign-in, which this connector doesn’t support yet. Work and school Microsoft 365 accounts often have IMAP turned off by the administrator.

“Folder not found” — the name must match exactly, including capitals. Gmail labels use the label’s name (Finance); nested labels and folders use a / (Banking/Cards).

Lucius finds nothing — check the folder is right (a filtered folder only has mail from the day the filter was created onwards), and give it a date range: “from the last 30 days.”

Custom server won’t connect — IMAP needs a secure connection (normally port 993); SMTP uses 587 (STARTTLS) or 465. Servers that only accept unencrypted connections aren’t supported.