Rookery

Keep your Gmail or Outlook, and use Rookery

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You don't have to move your email to use Rookery. Your mailbox forwards new mail to a Rookery inbox, and you reply from Rookery. Your phone and your old mail app keep working.

How it works

  • Mail in: your mailbox (Gmail, Google Workspace, Outlook.com, Microsoft 365, iCloud, Yahoo, Fastmail, Proton or another) forwards a copy of every new email to your Rookery inbox's address.
  • Replies out: each reply goes from your Rookery address, with Reply-To your own address. When they answer, it goes to your mailbox, which forwards it here, and it joins the same conversation.
  • With Gmail or Google Workspace, you can go one step further: send as your Gmail. Replies then go out as your own address, through Google, and land in your Gmail's Sent folder.

Rookery never asks for your password, and forwarding gives it no way into your mailbox.

Set it up

  1. In Settings → Inboxes, pick the inbox (or make a private one for yourself first: see Keep your own inbox private).
  2. Click Connect a mailbox…, choose where your mail is, type its address, and click Connect.
  3. Follow the steps Rookery shows for your provider. The address to forward to is at the top, ready to copy.
  4. Gmail and Google Workspace email Rookery a confirmation. It appears as a card on the inbox: check it names your address, then tap Open Gmail's confirm link (or type the code into Gmail). Rookery never opens the link for you.
  5. Back in your mailbox, turn forwarding on. In Gmail, choose Forward a copy of incoming mail and keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox while you try Rookery.
  6. Click Send a test. Rookery emails your own address; when forwarding brings it back, the inbox says Forwarded back ✓.

Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 don't send a confirmation email. Outlook asks you to prove it's you instead; that's expected. In Microsoft 365, your admin may need to allow forwarding outside the company: if people writing to you get a bounce saying "Your organization does not allow external forwarding", send them the note Rookery shows.

If a card says someone else asked to forward their mail to you, don't confirm it unless you meant to.

What the people you write to see

The composer says it above your words, every time:

  • From your Rookery address (Reply-To you@gmail.com): they see your Rookery address as the sender. Their reply goes to your own address and comes back here.
  • Sends as you@gmail.com through Gmail: once you've connected Gmail to send, they see your own address, and the copy is in your Gmail's Sent folder.

On a shared inbox, each person who sends as the address connects their own Gmail. Until you do, your replies go from the Rookery address, and the composer says who else sends through Gmail.

Is it still working?

Each forwarded inbox shows when forwarded mail last arrived, and whether replies go from your Rookery address or as your Gmail. If you reply from your phone's Gmail app, Rookery doesn't see that reply: add your Rookery address in Bcc to keep the conversation up to date.

Disconnect

Click Disconnect… on the inbox. Rookery stops treating it as your mailbox: replies get the inbox's usual reply address again, and anyone's Gmail sending on it stops and is revoked at Google. The mail already here stays. Rookery can't turn off forwarding in your mailbox: turn it off there, or mail keeps arriving.