How-To Series · Episode 29 / 59 · Module 5: Everywhere You Are

Hermes · Reads Your Email

Send a message to its inbox, get a threaded reply. Plain IMAP + SMTP.

After this videoYou can now route work to Hermes by email, no app required.

Hermes speaks plain IMAP and SMTP, so it works with Gmail, Outlook, Fastmail, anything standard, with no extra dependencies. Use a dedicated account and an app password (Gmail: 2FA then App Passwords, 16 chars). Configure with hermes gateway setup or set EMAIL_ADDRESS, EMAIL_PASSWORD, and the IMAP/SMTP hosts (ports 993 / 587). On launch it marks existing mail seen and polls every 15s. Replies thread via In-Reply-To; images go to vision, docs become readable files. Set EMAIL_ALLOWED_USERS or anyone who learns the address can command it; noreply and bulk mail are auto-ignored.

About these resources. Every command in this video comes from the Email messaging doc.

Sources · What this video distills

1 docs page · every command below traces to one of them
Primary · IMAP/SMTP model, Gmail app password, gateway setup, EMAIL_* env vars, threading, attachments, access control
Email Setup
Read ↗

Commands shown · Copy and paste

each shows the source doc it came from
Wire it upfrom source ↗
hermes gateway setup
Run itfrom source ↗
hermes gateway # or: hermes gateway install
Required env (~/.hermes/.env)from source ↗
EMAIL_ADDRESS=hermes@gmail.com EMAIL_PASSWORD= EMAIL_IMAP_HOST=imap.gmail.com EMAIL_SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
Lock it downfrom source ↗
EMAIL_ALLOWED_USERS=you@email.com,colleague@work.com

Going deeper · Related Hermes docs

further reading · not sources of facts shown above
Messaging overview
the gateway model behind every platform
Vision
how emailed images get read

Next in the series · Episodes that build on this

E28
Hermes on Signal
E30
Hermes on SMS
E36
Schedule With Cron