Integration with other email providers, especially self-hosted

[lukas-mertens]

Scope & Context

The ticket is about the gmail integration/email integration in general

Current behavior

Currently it is only possible to integrate with gmail as it seems

Expected behavior

I am part of an organization that runs most if its infrastructure self-hosted, including its email server. Twenty would be a great addition as a CRM. Currently it is not possible to integrate with self hosted email solutions however. An integration with mailcow/roundcube or simply imap (to allow integration with most email providers) would be great, so that not only gmail is supported.

[ajojotank]

I agree with this, although I am not sure on how to implement it as I am not a developer.

[FelixMalfait]

Moving to discussion. This is a highly requested feature. We need to continue working on the basics before we extend to other email providers but it will come at some point for sure!

[olmohake]

I am currently looking into different os crms for a non-profit organisation. Was really exited about twenty. However, being able to sync with exiting mail accounts is an hard requirement for us as well.

[jpstrikesback]

Also looking at twenty for a NPO, and an email fw/cc/bcc listener inbox (see #5807) is a requirement and would perhaps circumvent or delay the need for direct integrations (while losing the ability to send from twenty), I think a listener inbox would provide a more secure base option that gets the job done for more orgs.

[tfbecker]

+1

[nser77]

Same problem here.

We also need to to distribute those workers.

Is it possible?

[lhjt]

Also interested in seeing twenty support email providers outside of G oogle. My suggestion would be to support IMAP/SMTP directly, instead of having direct integrations with specific mailbox providers (and similarly use CalDAV for calendar scheduling).

This would mean that twenty could work with essentially every email provider as my understanding is the majority of providers support these protocols.

[chsasank]

Code seems to be organized in a way that they are open for other messaging platforms: https://github.com/twentyhq/twenty/blob/258fd078394c95da0e5790c59a5ec1352e120ec7/packages/twenty-server/src/modules/messaging/message-import-manager/drivers/gmail/providers/gmail-client.provider.ts

[chsasank]

A work around for the timebeing can probably be found by creating a free gmail ID and integrating it that with your email: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?sjid=5968582876535744111-AP

[kbkozlev]

I have the same issue, perhaps connecting the emails using IMAP or POP3 could be a solution

[vinyll]

I would also need a raw IMAP, SMTP and caldav support for business account

[talhakaanozkan]

I think it would be the right decision to bring SMTP - IMAP, POP3 support.

[folliesandjollies]

Any updates on the progress of this feature? Thanks!

[FelixMalfait]

Hey unfortunately, this hasn't been started yet. If someone wants to work on this we're open to paying a bounty for it.
(Need to be someone experienced/senior as this is quite a big task)

[zhyd1997]

Hi

I have experience with IMAP and SMTP, and I will look into it!

[scradeley]

What kind of bounty? How would that work?

[severinwullschleger]

hi @FelixMalfait, we started working on it on our fork. what is the bounty for bringing it upstream? I'm asking because it is probably quite some extra work because we are relatively far behind from upstream. We plan to merge your upstream anyways at some point but currently we have higher priorities on our timeline, that's why I need to plan ahead a bit

[FelixMalfait]

Hey @severinwullschleger thanks! There's a PR in review that's going to be merged soon: #12576

[zhyd1997]

I recommend using the SendGrid service to send emails.

[zhyd1997]

Good idea!

[lukas-mertens]

I think you are both misunderstanding the problem. This is not only about sending, but mainly about receiving mails and integrating them. The CRM needs both ingoing and outgoing emails so IMAP is probably the correct protocol, not SMTP. SMTP would be nice in a second iteration to also allow sending emails directly from Twenty, but most important is IMAP in my opinion.

[zhyd1997]

@lukas-mertens Yes, you can not only send but also receive emails:

https://github.com/zhyd1997/twenty-mail

[lukas-mertens]

@zhyd1997 I don't understand how the repository you linked is related to this problem? This just looks like an AI generated example on how to send and receive emails in node.js which is not the major problem of an issue like this. The main problem is integrating it into the CRM and mapping the existing functionality to SMTP + IMAP.

The best way to contribute to this as a non-senior-developer would probably be (maintainers, correct me if I am wrong) to make some sketches e.g. in excalidraw on how SMTP/IMAP Support could be integrated into the existing UI. This could be a great basis for discussion and it makes it clearer for everyone which fields have to be added to APIs etc.

Another thing someone more technical could do is to go through IMAP/SMTP spec and validate that all the functionality we have is indeed possible to just map to the other protocol

[zhyd1997]

I see, the repo is just a demo, I have experience with similar tasks for CRM (1. integrate Outlook for project A and 2. set up email webhook and parse email content for project B) in my previous work experience.

Anyway, someone may have taken the task.

[FelixMalfait]

Imap is now done thanks to @neo773 - it's behind a feature flag available in the lab (only on main for now, the next tagged image should come next week). He's working on smtp/caldav next which should also come soon!

[amrit-Cheeema]

any progress on this?

[zacnoo]

any progress on this?

I believe this is the PR, if you wanted to subscribe to it.

#12993

[Novapixel1010]

I noticed both PR #12993 and #12576 is merged. So what version should this be on or is there more testing/work to be done? I am on version 1.8.2 and don't see anything for setting this up? I am happy to bug test this if need.

[FelixMalfait]

It's still in the lab but I believe @neo773 will get it out soon!

[FelixMalfait]

In the meantime you can enable it manually

[Novapixel1010]

Thanks