Ontraport uses Nylas’ Universal Email API to connect your email inbox to your Ontraport account. When you sync your inbox with Ontraport, you can see emails to and from your contacts in their records.

The next time you reach out, you’ll be able to see a full history of your communications in your contact’s record. This makes it easy to ensure your responses are always relevant and helpful to your contacts.

Email sync settings are available to users with Ontraport Plus level accounts and above.

Table of contents

What Email Sync can do
• Centralize your communication history
• Trigger automations from incoming emails
Create a new email connection
Re-authenticate with Google
Re-sync connections
Delete an email sync setting

What Email Sync can do

Connecting your personal email inbox securely to your Ontraport account via the Nylas Universal Email API unlocks several powerful capabilities:

• Centralize your communication history: Email Sync automatically pulls emails sent to and from your contacts and saves them directly into the Contact Log within their individual records. This provides a complete, unified history of your communications in one place, making it easy to ensure your future responses are always relevant and helpful.
• Trigger automations: You can use the integration to automatically trigger automations in Ontraport whenever a contact sends you an email.
• Sync selective folders: You don't have to sync your entire inbox. The feature allows you to choose exactly which mailboxes or folders (such as your main inbox or a dedicated "customers" folder) you want to pull emails from.
• Continuous background syncing: Once connected, the system works in the background to automatically check for and sync newly received emails every 4 hours. 
  • Email Sync only retrieves emails from the moment you connect it onward; it does not retroactively sync past conversations.

Centralize your communication history

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When you sync your email inbox, Ontraport pulls in the messages sent to and from your contacts. It saves these messages in the Contact Log in their records. The messages appear as Email Sync log items. You can click a log item to view the message the contact sent you.

This history stops you from having to switch between Ontraport and your email client. You see all communication in one place. When you reach out to a contact, you can reference past interactions, which  ensures your responses are relevant and helpful.

Trigger automations from incoming emails

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Once you have successfully set up Email Sync, you can begin using the Sends you an email trigger on your automation maps. This allows you to automatically initiate follow-up actions the moment a contact reaches out to your connected inbox.

This trigger fires whenever a contact sends an email to your connected address. It is not possible to filter this trigger based on the specific content, keywords or subject line of the message.

Common use cases:

• Automated task assignment: Use the Sends you an email trigger followed by a task to the contact's account owner to follow up within 24 hours, ensuring no direct replies slip through the cracks.
• Lead scoring & engagement: Since a contact sending you a direct email is a strong sign of interest, you can use this trigger to automatically increase their lead score or move them into a "Highly Engaged" segment or pipeline stage.

Create a new email connection

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You can create new IMAP settings, upgrade or delete existing settings from your IMAP collection.

Here’s how to get there:

1. Go to → Administration → Email → Email Sync.
2. Click New Connection.
3. Next, add the email address you want to integrate and click Sign In.
   • Our integration partner, Nylas, determines your email provider from this dropdown, and you’ll be redirected to your provider’s sign in.
4. Sign in with your email provider’s login form.
5. Select the mailboxes you want to integrate.
   • Once you’re successfully connected, you’ll see your new connection editor.
   • These mailboxes are the folders in your email account. Check the folders you want to pull emails from, such as your inbox and “customers” folder.
6. Click Save in the top right corner.

Re-authenticate with Google

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Google requires users to re-authenticate their email sync connection every six months.

We'll notify you when it's time. You can also check the "Last sync status" column in your Email Sync collection. It shows "Re-authenticate" when you need to update. Add the "Last authenticated date" column to see when you last authenticated.

1. Go to → Personal profile → Integrations → Email Sync.
   • Or go to Administration → Email → Email Sync. 
2. Click on the email address you want to re-authenticate.
3. Click Connect with Google and follow the on-screen prompts to re-authenticate. 

Re-sync connections

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​​​​​​​If your Email Sync connection has issues, we'll alert you with an account pop-up. The pop-up will lead you through onscreen prompts to reconnect.

Re-syncing can take up to 48 hours.

Delete an email sync setting

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Deleting an email sync setting will disconnect your email account from Ontraport.

1. From your IMAP settings collection, select the IMAP setting you want to delete.
2. Click Delete from the action bar.
3. Click Delete to confirm.