---
title: Connect an Agent to Email
canonical: "https://agentbarn.dev/guides/platforms/email"
pubDate: "2026-09-09T00:00:00.000Z"
updatedDate: "2026-09-09T09:19:24.000Z"
author: Agent Barn
description: "Give an Agent an Email address, restrict permitted senders, and understand threaded plain-text, reply-only delivery."
tags: [Platforms, Guide, Agent operators and deployment administrators, email, sender allowlist, allocated address, reply-only, progress messages, approval]
categories: [Guides, Platforms]
---

Email lets an Agent receive a message at an allocated address and reply to its sender. Email support is shipped with Agent Barn but must be enabled by the deployment operator before an Email Communication Connection can be created.

## Connect an Agent

Open the Agent’s Communication Connections and add an Email Connection.

Choose who may email it. The default sender allowlist is empty, so add permitted full addresses or domain entries such as `@example.com` before expecting messages to be admitted.

Copy the allocated address from the Connection card and share it with the intended correspondents.

Use the Conversations view to read admitted messages and threaded replies. Runtime health and Connection delivery health remain separate.

## Sender policy

Allowlist accepts only matching senders; Open accepts senders who know the address. Sender-address policy is not a separate identity-authentication guarantee. Configure access according to the audience that should be able to invoke the Agent.

## What Email supports

Replies are plain text and go only to the sender of the source inbound message. The Agent cannot independently start an email conversation, choose a new recipient, or add recipients through this delivery path. Attachments are not sent or received by this integration. Automated/bulk-mail guards and quoted-history trimming apply to inbound messages.

Each Email Connection receives its own address. Retiring the Connection or deleting its Agent releases routing for the address, but its local part is never reissued to another Connection. Recreating a Connection does not restore its old address.

Email suppresses verbose progress updates; approval prompts can still be sent.

## Related documentation

If Email is unavailable, follow [Configure Agent Email](/guides/self-hosting/email). See [Communication Connections](/guides/agents/communication-connections) and [Choose a Runtime](/guides/agents/choose-runtime) for ownership and execution boundaries.

## Progress and approval

Email suppresses progress updates even when Hermes Agent-level verbosity is enabled. Approval prompts can still be delivered; progress visibility and command approval are separate.