Email

Three provider-agnostic email nodes that work with any IMAP/SMTP mail account: send messages, read and manage your mailbox, and trigger workflows when new mail arrives. Under the hood they drive the Himalaya CLI, so anything Himalaya can talk to, these nodes can too. If your mail lives in Gmail and you want richer, API-native operations (labels, Gmail search syntax, OAuth sign-in), use the dedicated Google Workspace nodes instead. The nodes on this page are the right choice for Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, ProtonMail, Fastmail, self-hosted servers — or Gmail over plain IMAP.

Node	Kind	What it does
Email Send	Action + AI tool	Send an email over SMTP
Email Read	Action + AI tool	List, search, read, move, delete, and flag messages over IMAP
Email Receive	Trigger (polling)	Fires when a new email lands in a watched folder

Set up an email account

Click the key icon to open API Credentials and select Email (IMAP/SMTP) under the Email category. The panel provides:

A provider dropdown with built-in presets: Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, ProtonMail, Fastmail, and custom. Presets fill in the IMAP/SMTP host, port, and encryption for you.
Email address and password inputs.
A custom IMAP/SMTP block (host + port for each) that appears only when the provider is custom — for self-hosted or unlisted servers.
Save writes the credentials; Remove clears them.

Most providers expect an app password here rather than your regular login. An app password is a single-purpose password your mail provider generates specifically for third-party apps, so you never hand out your real account password.

Provider	Password to use	Notes
Gmail	App Password	Requires 2-Step Verification; generate under Google Account → Security
Outlook / Office 365	Account or App Password
Yahoo	App Password
iCloud	App-Specific Password	Generate at appleid.apple.com
ProtonMail	Bridge password	Requires ProtonMail Bridge running locally
Fastmail	App Password	Generate under Settings → Privacy & Security
Custom	Whatever your server accepts	Fill in the IMAP/SMTP host and port fields

The himalaya CLI must be installed and on your PATH — install via brew install himalaya, cargo install himalaya, or the pre-built binaries on its GitHub releases page. If it is missing, the nodes return an error with install instructions.

You can also override any credential field per node: a node parameter always wins over the provider preset, which wins over the stored credential.

Email Send

Send an email over SMTP. Also usable as an AI tool (email_send) — wire it to an AI Agent’s tools handle and the agent fills the same parameters.

Parameters

select

default:"gmail"

gmail, outlook, yahoo, icloud, protonmail, fastmail, or custom — picks the connection preset

string

required

Recipient(s), comma-separated

string

required

Email subject line

string

Email body — plain text or HTML depending on body_type

string

CC recipients

string

BCC recipients

select

default:"text"

text or html. HTML sends a multipart/alternative MIME message.

Output

{
  "from": "you@example.com"
}

The result includes from (the resolved sender address) merged with whatever the underlying send command returns — often an empty object on success, or raw_output when the CLI output is not JSON.

Example: Send a status update

Provider: gmail
To: team@example.com
Subject: Nightly build finished
Body: The nightly build completed successfully.
Body Type: text

Attachments are not supported — the node composes a single text or HTML part.

Email Read

Read and manage an IMAP mailbox: list envelopes, search, fetch a full message, list folders, move, delete, and flag. One node, seven operations selected by the Operation parameter. Also usable as an AI tool (email_read).

Operation	Description
list	List envelopes in a folder (paginated)
search	Search a folder with Himalaya query syntax
read	Fetch one full message by ID
folders	List all folders
move	Move a message to another folder
delete	Delete a message
flag	Add or remove a flag on a message

Parameters

select

default:"gmail"

Connection preset (same choices as Email Send)

select

default:"list"

list, search, read, folders, move, delete, or flag

string

default:"INBOX"

IMAP folder to operate on

Operation-specific parameters:

Parameter	Used by	Default	Description
`query`	search		Himalaya search expression, e.g. `from:alice subject:invoice`
`message_id`	read, move, delete, flag		IMAP message ID
`target_folder`	move		Destination folder
`flag`	flag		`Seen`, `Answered`, `Flagged`, `Draft`, or `Deleted`
`flag_action`	flag	`add`	`add` or `remove`
`page`	list, search	`1`	1-based page number
`page_size`	list, search	`20`	Items per page (1-500)

Output

{
  "operation": "list",
  "folder": "INBOX",
  "data": [
    {"id": "1042", "from": "alice@example.com", "subject": "Invoice #204", "date": "2026-07-15"}
  ]
}

The result always echoes operation and folder. When the CLI returns a JSON object its keys are merged in; a list is wrapped under data; non-JSON output lands in raw_output.

Example: Find invoices

Operation: search
Folder: INBOX
Query: from:billing subject:invoice
Page Size: 20

The delete operation is permanent and does not ask for confirmation — treat it carefully, especially when this node is exposed to an AI agent as a tool.

Email Receive

Polling trigger that fires when a new email lands in a watched IMAP folder. The first poll establishes a baseline so existing mail is not replayed; subsequent polls diff message IDs to detect new arrivals.

Parameters

select

default:"gmail"

Connection preset (same choices as Email Send)

string

default:"INBOX"

IMAP folder to watch

number

default:"60"

Seconds between polls (clamped to 30-3600)

string

Reserved — not currently applied during polling

boolean

default:"false"

Add the Seen flag to the new message after fetching it

Output

{
  "message_id": "1043",
  "folder": "INBOX",
  "from": "customer@example.com",
  "to": "support@example.com",
  "subject": "Order question",
  "date": "2026-07-15T09:12:00Z",
  "body": "Hi, I have a question about my order..."
}

message_id and folder are always present; the remaining fields are whatever the message read returns (from, to, subject, date, body, …).

Example: Watch the support inbox

Provider: fastmail
Folder: INBOX
Poll Interval: 60
Mark As Read: true

Only the first new message per poll cycle is emitted — others arriving in the same window are absorbed into the baseline. The baseline is in-memory, so mail arriving while the server is offline will not fire the trigger after a restart.

Example: Auto-reply triage

Answer incoming support mail automatically:

[Email Receive] --> [AI Agent] --> [Email Send]

Email Receive
- Folder: INBOX
- Poll Interval: 60
- Mark As Read: true
AI Agent
- Prompt: “Read the incoming email and draft a short, polite reply. If it is a billing question, say the billing team will follow up within one business day.”
Email Send
- To: the sender of the incoming message
- Subject: Re: plus the original subject
- Body: the agent’s draft

Deploy the workflow so the trigger keeps polling continuously instead of running once.

Tips

Provider presets cover the connection details — for the seven built-in providers you only ever enter your address and an app password.

ProtonMail requires the ProtonMail Bridge running locally; the preset already points at the Bridge’s local IMAP/SMTP ports.

Wire Email Send and Email Read to the same AI Agent to build a full mailbox assistant: the agent can search, read, and reply within a single conversation.

Google Workspace

API-native Gmail nodes with OAuth sign-in

AI Agents

Use the email nodes as AI tools

Schedulers & Triggers

Combine email with scheduled workflows

Messaging & Social

Telegram, Twitter/X, and social nodes

Concepts

Node catalog

Email

Email

Set up an email account

Email Send

Parameters

Output

Example: Send a status update

Email Read

Parameters

Output

Example: Find invoices

Email Receive

Parameters

Output

Example: Watch the support inbox

Example: Auto-reply triage

Tips

Google Workspace

AI Agents

Schedulers & Triggers

Messaging & Social

​Email

​Set up an email account

​Email Send

​Parameters

​Output

​Example: Send a status update

​Email Read

​Parameters

​Output

​Example: Find invoices

​Email Receive

​Parameters

​Output

​Example: Watch the support inbox

​Example: Auto-reply triage

​Tips

​Related

Google Workspace

AI Agents

Schedulers & Triggers

Messaging & Social

Email

Set up an email account

Email Send

Parameters

Output

Example: Send a status update

Email Read

Parameters

Output

Example: Find invoices

Email Receive

Parameters

Output

Example: Watch the support inbox

Example: Auto-reply triage

Tips

Related