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By the end of this guide you'll have your work mailbox connected to Covercy One, you'll know which emails Covercy keeps and which it leaves alone, and you'll be able to set the list of email domains you never want in your CRM.
Note
You need access to the GP workspace to connect a mailbox. Emails are matched against contacts that already exist in your CRM, so add your investors and other external contacts first if you want their conversations captured.
Connect your mailbox
- Open Settings and go to the email settings page.
- In the Mailbox Connections section, connect your Gmail work mailbox and grant Covercy access when your provider asks. You can connect more than one mailbox.
- Confirm the mailbox shows as connected.
- Make sure automatic email logging is turned on for the mailbox — that is what tells Covercy One to keep syncing it for you.
Warning
Covercy will never ask you to share your password, two-factor codes, or banking credentials by email, text, or phone. Always navigate to Covercy directly rather than following links in unexpected messages.
How syncing runs
Your first sync starts on its own as soon as you open Covercy One while signed in — simply loading the app is the trigger. After that, Covercy One refreshes your connected mailboxes periodically while you keep working, and a background sync keeps them up to date even when you're not in the app. You never have to click anything to keep your CRM current — but when you don't want to wait, you can refresh a page yourself.
Tip
Syncing runs in the background, so it never delays a page from loading. If a sync attempt fails, it doesn't interrupt your work — Covercy One simply tries again on a later sync.
Refresh a page yourself
The Tasks, Activity and Communications pages each carry a Refresh control for the times you'd rather not wait for the next automatic sync. It sits with each page's own working controls rather than in the page header: on Tasks and Communications it's in the table's toolbar, immediately to the left of the “…” overflow menu; on Activity it's the right-most control of the filter toolbar that carries the Activity type filter.
Note
The control is called Refresh, never “Sync” — so look for the refresh icon rather than the word you've read in this article's sync sections. It's an icon-only button with no text on it: the label Refresh appears when you hover it or move keyboard focus onto it, and that's also what a screen reader announces.
Selecting Refresh runs the same mailbox refresh that already runs for you automatically, across every mailbox you have connected. When it finishes, the page's own list updates in place — no reload and no navigation — so an email that has just synced appears right where you are.
Warning
While a refresh is running, the button is unavailable and shows that it's working. If the refresh fails, you're shown an error and the button becomes available again — nothing is lost, and you can try again.
Note
When you have no mailbox connected, the Refresh control isn't shown at all — there would be nothing for it to refresh. So if you can't find it, that means no mailbox is connected rather than anything missing from the page. Connecting a mailbox is still done from your email settings, as above.
Which emails Covercy keeps
Covercy One doesn't copy your whole mailbox. It keeps an email only when the email involves one of your contacts, which is usually the answer to "why isn't this email in Covercy?":
- An email is kept when at least one participant — the sender or any recipient — matches a contact in your CRM and that participant's email domain isn't on your ignored-domains list. The email is logged as an activity on that contact's record, even when teammates from your firm are on the same thread.
- An email with no contact among its participants isn't stored in Covercy at all.
- An email whose only contact match sits on an ignored domain doesn't qualify either, so it isn't stored.
- Threads that are purely internal — everyone on them is a member of your firm, or everyone is on your company's email domain — aren't logged as activities in your CRM.
- Personal email providers, such as Gmail, don't count as your company domain. If someone writes from a personal address that matches a CRM contact, that email is kept — even if the person also works at your firm.
Choose which domains to ignore
Every organization has its own ignored-domains list. Mail to and from the domains on it stays out of your CRM, which is how you keep a vendor, a mailing list, or your own firm's chatter out of your contacts' activity feeds. A new organization starts with covercy.com already on the list.
- Open your email settings and find the list of ignored domains.
- Add a domain you don't want synced, or remove one you no longer want to ignore. Domains are saved in lowercase, so capitalization and stray spaces don't matter.
- Save the list. It applies to every sync from that point on.
Note
The list holds up to ten domains. If you've reached ten, remove one before you can add another.
Warning
Editing the list also cleans up retroactively. When you add a domain, emails already synced into Covercy that no longer qualify are removed, along with the activities that came from them; emails that still qualify are left untouched. This only removes messages from Covercy — your own mailbox is never changed, and every original email is still there with your email provider.
Emails you send from Covercy
An email you send from Covercy One is always recorded as a communication, whoever you send it to. Send to someone who is a contact and the communication is linked to that contact's record; send to someone who isn't a contact and the email still goes out and is still logged, just without a contact link. Sending from Covercy isn't subject to the contact rule above — that rule governs what Covercy keeps from your mailbox, not what you send from the CRM.
Where your synced emails appear
Synced emails show up as email activities on the matching contact's record, and in the Communications page alongside your logged calls, meetings, and notes. You don't need to log these emails by hand.
Verify it worked
Open a contact you've emailed recently and check that the conversation appears in their activity feed as an email activity. Because syncing runs in the background, a recent email can take a short while to show up — select Refresh if you'd rather not wait. If your emails still aren't appearing, confirm the mailbox shows as connected, check that the other participants exist as contacts in your CRM, and check that their domain isn't on your ignored-domains list. If something still doesn't look right, reach out to our team for help.
Note
Want to stop syncing a mailbox? Disconnecting a connected mailbox is covered in Set up your firm and workspace, along with the rest of your workspace settings.
- Do I need to click anything to sync my email?
- No — but you can. Once your mailbox is connected, syncing is automatic: the first sync starts as soon as you open Covercy One while signed in, then Covercy One refreshes periodically while you're working and again on a background schedule when you're not. When you'd rather not wait, the Tasks, Activity and Communications pages each carry a Refresh control that runs the same refresh across your connected mailboxes straight away.
- I'm looking for a “Sync” button and can't find one. Where is it?
- The control is called Refresh, not Sync. It's an icon-only button with no text — on Tasks and Communications it sits in the table toolbar just left of the “…” menu, and on Activity it's the right-most control of the filter toolbar. Hover it or move keyboard focus onto it and the label Refresh appears.
- Why don't I see the Refresh control on Tasks, Activity or Communications?
- Because no mailbox is connected. The control isn't rendered at all when you have no connected mailbox, since there would be nothing for it to refresh. Connect a mailbox from your email settings and it appears.
- Why isn't a particular email in Covercy?
- Covercy keeps an email only when at least one participant matches a contact in your CRM and that participant's domain isn't on your ignored-domains list. An email with no contact among its participants isn't stored at all, and neither is one whose only contact match sits on an ignored domain. Purely internal threads aren't logged as activities either. Also allow a short while for a recent email to sync.
- What is the ignored-domains list for?
- It's a per-organization list of email domains whose mail stays out of your CRM. A new organization starts with covercy.com on it, you can add and remove domains as you like, and the list holds up to ten.
- If I add a domain to the list, does that delete emails from my mailbox?
- No. Adding a domain removes the already-synced emails that no longer qualify from Covercy, along with the activities that came from them. Your mailbox at your email provider is never touched — every original email is still there.
- Are emails I send from Covercy logged too?
- Yes, always. A send to a contact is logged as a communication and linked to that contact. A send to someone who isn't a contact is still logged, just without a contact link.
- What if a contact emails me from a personal address like Gmail?
- Personal email providers aren't treated as your company domain. If the address matches a contact in your CRM, the email is kept and logged against that contact — even if the person also works at your firm.
- Does email sync slow down the app?
- No. Syncing runs in the background, so it never blocks a page from loading. If a sync attempt fails, you keep working normally and Covercy One retries on a later sync.