Common questions about CrowdInbox

CrowdInbox works with every mailbox that can be reached over IMAP and SMTP. This includes Gmail, Outlook and Microsoft 365, iCloud, GMX, WEB.DE, T-Online, Posteo, mailbox.org, Fastmail, IONOS and Yahoo, as well as your company’s own mail server. POP3 and Exchange ActiveSync are not supported. A Microsoft 365 or Exchange mailbox works if your organisation allows IMAP.

Enter your email address, and CrowdInbox looks up the server settings for you. The app checks its own list of the large providers first, then the settings your domain publishes, then Thunderbird’s public directory, and finally a few common server names. If no settings are found, you enter the servers yourself.

Yes. You can add any number of mailboxes, including mailboxes from different providers. CrowdInbox shows the email from all accounts in one unified inbox, and you can switch to a single account at any time. Additional accounts cost nothing.

You add Gmail with an app password. This is a separate password that Google creates for CrowdInbox only. Setting it up takes about a minute.

1. Turn on 2-Step Verification in your Google Account. Google offers app passwords only when it is turned on. Open Google’s security settings
2. Create an app password at myaccount.google.com/apppasswords and name it CrowdInbox. Google then shows you the password, which consists of 16 letters.
3. Paste this password into CrowdInbox when the app asks for it. The spaces between the groups of letters do not matter.

If you use Gmail through your work or school, your organisation may have switched off app passwords. Only the organisation itself can switch them on.

Why is there no “Sign in with Google”? Google allows an email app to offer this sign-in only after a security assessment that has to be repeated every year. Until CrowdInbox has completed this assessment, you sign in with an app password. The app password works in the same way, and you can delete it at any time on the same Google page.

Choose Continue with Microsoft. Microsoft’s sign-in page then opens. Sign in there and allow CrowdInbox to read and send your email. The app never receives your Microsoft password.

There is no password field for these accounts, because Microsoft no longer allows email apps to sign in with a password.

With a work or school account, your organisation may have to approve CrowdInbox first, or it may have switched off IMAP. If Microsoft tells you so after you sign in, contact your organisation.

iCloud Mail requires an app-specific password. At account.apple.com, open Sign-In and Security → App-Specific Passwords, create a password with the name CrowdInbox and paste it into the app.

Apple requires two-factor authentication for this. Most Apple Accounts already have it.

GMX and WEB.DE allow other email apps to connect only after you have switched on access by POP3 and IMAP in your mailbox on their website. This access is switched off by default, and both providers switch it off again if no email app has used it for an extended period.

1. Sign in to your mailbox on the GMX or WEB.DE website in a browser on your computer.
2. On gmx.net and web.de, click the symbol with your initials in the top bar and open E-Mail-Einstellungen. Under E-Mail empfangen, select POP3/IMAP, switch on POP3- und IMAP-Zugriff erlauben and answer the security question. On gmx.com, open Settings → POP3 & IMAP in the Email tab, tick Enable access to this account via POP3 and IMAP and click Save.
3. Add the mailbox in CrowdInbox with your email address and your password.

If you use two-factor authentication at GMX or WEB.DE, create an app password in your account there and enter it in CrowdInbox instead of your usual password. On gmx.net and web.de, you will find it under Account verwalten → Login & Sicherheit → App-Passwörter (für externe Apps).

T-Online requires its separate password for email programs (Passwort für E-Mail-Programme), not your Telekom login password. You set it in the settings of the Telekom E-Mail Center under Passwörter.

In most cases, the cause is one of the following:

• Gmail and iCloud require the app password described above, not the password you use to sign in there.
• GMX and WEB.DE allow email apps to connect only after IMAP access has been switched on in their web settings. How to switch it on
• T-Online requires its separate email password, not your login password.
• In all other cases, check whether the password contains a typing error and whether your provider also requires an app password.

iOS does not allow an app to keep a connection to your mail server open while the app is closed. CrowdInbox is allowed to work in the background only occasionally and for a short time. On its own, the app cannot check more often whether new email has arrived.

To be notified as soon as an email arrives, open Settings → Accounts, select the mailbox and switch on Instant Notifications there. Instant notifications run through our relay, which stays switched off until you switch it on. The privacy policy states which data the relay stores. Instant notifications are not yet available for mailboxes with Microsoft sign-in.

A scheduled message is sent while your iPhone is switched off only if you have switched on Settings → Mail → Send Later Without the App. This feature runs through our relay. Without it, the iPhone sends the message itself. If CrowdInbox is not running at the scheduled time, the message is sent the next time the app runs.

When the setting is switched on, the app hands the scheduled message to our relay. The relay holds the message until it has been sent and deletes it afterwards. Mailboxes with Microsoft sign-in continue to send from the iPhone. On the computer, the same setting is under Settings → Plus.

Yes, on the iPhone. In the iPhone’s Settings, turn on CrowdInbox under General → AutoFill & Passwords. Safari then offers the code from an email for the website that sent it.

A code is stored for 15 minutes and is never sent anywhere.

No. CrowdInbox retrieves your email directly from your provider and stores it on your device.

Where your email is concerned, ServerCrowd is involved only in the two features that you can switch on yourself:

• Instant Notifications: the relay signs in to your mailbox with the mailbox password, which it stores in encrypted form. It reads only the message numbers of the inbox in order to notice that a new message has arrived. It does not read the sender, the subject or the content of any message. Relay
• Send Later Without the App: the relay holds the scheduled message until it has been sent. Relay

Your password is stored on your device, in the credential store of the operating system: the Keychain on the iPhone and on macOS, the Credential Manager on Windows and the Secret Service on Linux. The app uses it to sign in to your mail provider and does not send it to ServerCrowd.

The only exceptions are two features that run through the relay and that you switch on yourself:

• Instant Notifications: the relay stores the password in encrypted form and deletes it as soon as you switch the feature off. Relay
• Send Later Without the App: the relay stores the password together with the scheduled message in encrypted form and deletes both once the message has been sent. Relay

With Outlook and Microsoft 365, you sign in on Microsoft’s page. The app never receives your Microsoft password.

No. CrowdInbox has no cloud storage of its own for your email. The app retrieves your email from your mail provider and stores it on your device. Snoozed email, drafts and the settings your devices share are kept in your own mailbox with your mail provider, not on ServerCrowd’s servers.

The only exception is a feature that you switch on yourself:

• Send Later Without the App: the relay holds a scheduled message in encrypted form until it has been sent and deletes it afterwards. Relay

No. Neither the iPhone app nor the desktop app contains advertising or tracking libraries. The app itself collects no usage statistics and sends no error reports to ServerCrowd.

ServerCrowd GmbH is a German company and is subject to the GDPR. The relay runs on servers in Germany. The privacy policy and the page What the app does with your data describe which data the app stores and which data leaves your device.

The iPhone app is currently distributed through Apple’s TestFlight. Apple collects crash logs and usage information from testers under its own terms and makes them available to ServerCrowd as the developer. The app itself takes no part in this.

Remove the mailbox in the app, or delete the app, because the app stores its data on your device. If you use the relay, also switch off Instant Notifications and Send Later Without the App. The relay then deletes the data it held. If you signed in to an account for Plus, sign out or delete the account on the Plus page of the app.

For any other request about your data, write to data-protection@servercrowd.de.

The app is free on every platform. This covers every mailbox, sorting, search, snooze and sending later from your own devices.

The only paid part is CrowdInbox Plus. It costs €19.99 a year on the website. On the iPhone, it costs €1.99 a month or €19.99 a year in the App Store. Plus includes the following:

• Instant notifications on the iPhone Relay
• Send Later Without the App Relay
• Summaries and suggested replies on iPhones with Apple Intelligence

Plus is not on sale yet. Until it is, Instant Notifications and Send Later Without the App work without Plus.

No. You do not need an account for your email, and the app does not ask for one anywhere.

There is an optional CrowdInbox account, which serves a single purpose: CrowdInbox Plus. The account runs through our relay. If you buy Plus on the iPhone, you need the account only so that Plus is also active on your other devices. If you buy Plus on the website, you need the account on every device where you want to use Plus. Sign in there with the email address you bought Plus for.

The account consists of your email address and a code that we send to that address. It has no password. You can sign in, sign out and delete the account on the Plus page of the app.

If you bought Plus on the website, you can cancel it here or use the link in the receipt from Paddle, the seller. In the first 14 days after the purchase, you can withdraw from the contract and get your money back. The details are on the Refunds and withdrawal page.

If you bought Plus on the iPhone, you cancel it in your Apple Account under Settings → your name → Subscriptions.