Have your AI email the answer to whoever needs it

Seven steps, and they are the same outgoing mail details your mail client already uses. Two catch people: the server has to be the outgoing one, not the incoming one, and many providers want an app-specific password rather than your everyday one.

1. 1

   Find your provider's outgoing mail settings

   The server, the port and the security setting: the same three your mail client already uses. Most providers publish them on a page called SMTP settings; in a mail client they are under the account's outgoing server.

   Outgoing, not incoming. An IMAP or POP server accepts the same password and cannot send, so the address is the one thing worth checking twice.

2. 2

   Note the port and how it is secured

   Almost always 587 with STARTTLS, or 465 with SSL. If your provider offers both, 587 is the one to use.

   Port 25 is for servers talking to each other and most networks block it outright. A connection that hangs rather than refusing is usually this.

3. 3

   Use the mailbox's own username and password

   The username is normally the full address. Where your provider requires an app-specific password for anything that is not its own client, that is the password to use here. Your everyday one will be refused.

   An app-specific password is usually created on the provider's security page and shown once. It is separate from your account password and can be revoked on its own, which also means revoking it stops HeyMetra sending without touching anything else.

4. 4

   Name the address to send from

   Usually the same as the username. Some providers refuse to send as an address the mailbox does not own, so an alias has to be one the provider already knows about.

5. 5

   Choose a default recipient, or leave it blank

   Where a message goes when nobody says otherwise, and the addresses your assistant may send to without asking. A message to anyone else waits on an approval card that shows every address before it goes.

   A shared team address is the usual choice. Leave it empty if you would rather say who to write to each time.

6. 6

   Save, and read the test message

   HeyMetra sends a real message while you connect. If it does not arrive the connection is not saved, so a password that signs in but cannot send is caught here rather than the first time something matters.

7. 7

   Add HeyMetra to the assistant you use

   Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or Antigravity. You paste one address and sign in once. Your assistant can then send to your saved addresses, and a message to anyone else waits for your approval.

Then add HeyMetra where you ask

Claude ChatGPT Grok Perplexity Claude Code Codex Cursor Antigravity

Five things go wrong with email, and none of them are about HeyMetra: a provider refusing your normal password, a blocked port, a first message filed as spam, a send-from address the mailbox does not own, and a provider's own sending cap.

Saving fails saying the username or password was rejected.

Most providers now refuse an account password to anything that is not their own client, and answer the same way they would for a wrong one.

Create an app-specific password on your provider's security page and use that instead. It usually requires two-factor authentication to be switched on first.

Saving hangs and eventually times out.

The port is blocked rather than refused: port 25 almost always, and sometimes 465 on a restricted network.

Use 587 with STARTTLS, which is open almost everywhere.

The connection saves but the test message never arrives.

It did leave: the connection is not saved unless the server accepted it. Filtering is what stands between there and the inbox, and a first message from a new sender is what a spam filter is for.

Check the spam folder and mark it as not spam. If the sending domain publishes SPF and DKIM records, a message sent as an address on that domain is far less likely to be filtered.

The server refuses the address you chose to send from.

Providers will not send as an address the mailbox does not own, which is how they stop their servers being used to impersonate people.

Send from the mailbox's own address, or add the alias to the mailbox on the provider's side first.

Several messages go through and then the provider starts refusing them.

Mail providers cap how much one mailbox may send in a day or an hour, and the cap counts everything that mailbox sends, not only what HeyMetra sends.

The cap clears on its own. HeyMetra also holds a workspace to a daily number of messages, so reaching the cap is unusual, though a busy shared mailbox reaches it sooner.