Add an email account to Wire

Wire reads a real IMAP account through your operating system credential store, using an app password rather than your account login, and never writes, deletes or moves anything on the server.

Last checked against the app on · View as Markdown

Steps

  1. Open Wire, then the Email section, then Add account.
  2. Fill in a label for yourself, the address, the IMAP host, for example imap.gmail.com, your username and the port, which defaults to 993.
  3. Give it an app password, not your account login password. Most providers, Gmail included, refuse an ordinary password for IMAP and want one generated specifically for this. It goes straight into your OS credential store; the account file on disk never contains it.
  4. SMTP is optional and only needed for sending: a host, for example smtp.gmail.com, a username if it differs from IMAP, and a port, which defaults to 587.

How to tell it worked

The account appears in the Email section, and messages from the first fetch, at most 50, newest first, show up.

If it does not work

Login fails with your normal password.
Almost every provider, Gmail included, refuses an ordinary account password for IMAP. Generate an app password in the provider’s own security settings and use that instead.
One account fails and you assume the others are broken too.
They are not. Each account fetches independently, and a failed login on one is reported against that account alone.
You are worried about what Wire can do to your mailbox.
Nothing destructive. It reads messages without marking them read and never deletes, moves or sends anything by itself: sending is always a separate, manual step.
You cannot find Wire in the app at all.
It needs Business edition specifically, a step above Personal.