# Connect your Google Workspace mailbox > What you need, how to get the password, and the exact settings to type so your office can send and read e-mail through your Google Workspace mailbox. Your office sends and reads e-mail through your own business mailbox — never a shared address, and never without your approval. This page takes you from nothing to a working Google Workspace mailbox. Everything here is the same information the **Need help?** drawer on the Connectors page shows you, drawn from the same place, so the two can never disagree. ## What you need - The full e-mail address of the mailbox your office should send from, and the ability to sign in to it. - Someone with administrator rights on your Google Workspace account. The first step below cannot be done by anyone else — if that is not you, send them this page. - A one-time app password, which you create in the steps below. Your office never receives your everyday sign-in password. - Your business postal address, and the reason you are allowed to write to the people your office will contact. The form asks for both before it will let you save, so have them to hand — see "Finish the form, in this order" below. > If you would rather not type settings at all, the Connectors page offers a sign-in button for Google Workspace under **Connect your business mailbox**. Where that button has not been set up it reads **Not available yet** — and then the steps below are the path that works everywhere. ## Getting your password 1. Your Workspace admin must first allow app passwords for the organization: Admin console (admin.google.com) → Security → Authentication → 2-Step Verification → turn on "Allow users to generate app passwords". If you are the admin, do this first — users cannot see the option until you do. 2. The mailbox owner turns on 2-Step Verification on their own account: myaccount.google.com → Security → 2-Step Verification. 3. Once 2-Step Verification is on, generate an app password at myaccount.google.com/apppasswords, choosing app type "Mail". Google shows the 16-character password once — copy it immediately. 4. Use the mailbox's full email address as the username and the 16-character app password (never the normal login password) in the mailbox settings in the next section. ## The settings to enter On the Connectors page, find **Email connector**. The button that opens the form reads **Advanced: SMTP / IMAP** if you have never connected a mailbox, and **Change connector** if one is already connected — both open the same form, and the form itself is headed **SMTP / IMAP**. | Setting | SMTP (outgoing) | IMAP (incoming, optional) | | --- | --- | --- | | Host | `smtp.gmail.com` | `imap.gmail.com` | | Port | `587` (or `465`) | `993` | | Username | The mailbox’s full e-mail address | The same full e-mail address | | Password | The app password from the steps above | The same app password | Encryption: `STARTTLS (587) or SSL/TLS (465)` for outgoing mail, `SSL/TLS` for incoming. Leave **Use TLS** ticked on both halves of the form. The outgoing fields are labelled **SMTP host**, **Port**, **Use TLS**, **Username** and **Password**. Incoming mail is optional: tick **Also configure IMAP (optional)** to reveal **IMAP host**, **IMAP port**, **Use TLS**, **Username** and **Password**. Your office can send without it, but it can only read replies once incoming mail is set up. ## Finish the form, in this order The mail settings above are not the whole form. Two more answers are required before it will save, and two buttons finish the job: 1. **Confirm your business postal address.** Required by law on business e-mail, not by us — it appears at the bottom of everything your office sends. 2. **Choose your legal basis for contacting these people.** Pick the option that matches how you got your contacts. The form says so itself: most small businesses choose "They are a potential customer for our business", and that is the default rather than a requirement. 3. **Save connector.** If saving does nothing, the postal address is the field to check first — an empty one blocks the save and the page says so above the box. (Your legal basis cannot block it: the form starts with an option already chosen.) 4. **Test connection.** Until you do, the mailbox reads **Waiting for verification**: drafts still work, but sending needs it. ## Good to know - Google is moving Workspace accounts toward signing in with Google only; some organizations disable app passwords entirely. If your admin has turned this off, an app password will not be offered — ask them to enable it, or use the sign-in button under Google Workspace in the "Connect your business mailbox" section of the Connectors page instead — no app password needed. - IMAP access itself may need enabling first in Gmail settings (Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP → Enable IMAP) if it was never turned on for this mailbox. ## Where these settings come from Every fact on this page was checked on 2026-08-04 against the documentation Google Workspace publishes itself. Providers do move these things. If what you see on screen no longer matches what is written here, their own pages are the authority: - - - Still stuck? The Connectors page has a **Need help?** button, and inside it a **Still stuck? Ask the CEO** button that hands the question to your CEO, naming the provider you were reading about.