Outlook Email Integration
Import emails from Outlook as tasks, take actions on emails, and keep your inbox in sync with Sunsama.
Turn the emails you need to act on into tasks. Browse your Outlook folders in a panel beside your task list, drag an email into your plan, and read, flag and reply to the conversation from inside the task.
Installation
Go to Settings > Integrations > Email, or open Outlook email in the right hand panel, and click Add Outlook account. You can connect more than one Outlook account, and Gmail accounts too.
Once an account is connected, the same settings page lists your accounts (with Reconnect and Remove) and has two settings: Custom email client (below) and an Include activity from your email in your Daily Highlights? toggle. It also holds your email forwarding address.
Opening emails in Superhuman rather than Outlook
If you use Superhuman as your email client, you can have Sunsama open your Outlook emails in Superhuman rather than Outlook.
Go to Settings > Integrations > Email. Under “Settings”, open the “Custom email client” dropdown and choose “Superhuman (Desktop)” or “Superhuman (Web)”. This setting appears once you’ve connected an email account.
Now when you open an email within Sunsama, whether that email is in your task list or the integration panel, it will open in Superhuman rather than the default email client.
Browsing and importing emails
Open Outlook in the right hand panel to use the integration (keyboard shortcut Shift O).
Use folders, focus, and filters to view the relevant set of emails you wish to browse and import into Sunsama.
Folders: Select which folder you want to view the emails of.
Focus: Click on the focus to toggle between your All, Focused, and Other views in Outlook.
Filters: Click Filter to narrow the set of emails you see:
- All, Unread, Flagged or Attachments (emails with an attachment in the thread)
- Already Imported shows or hides emails you’ve already turned into tasks. A new message on an imported email always shows.
Importing tasks
When you import an email from Outlook into Sunsama, the newly created Sunsama task’s title will be the subject of the email. To import:
- Drag the email from the Outlook panel onto your task list.
- To timebox it right away, switch to calendar view (
J) and drag the email onto your calendar at the time you’ll work on it. Sunsama adds the task to that day and creates a working session on your calendar. - Click the email to preview it and choose Add to today (or hover and press
S), Pick a day, or Add to backlog.
Opening an email’s preview from the panel marks it read, as Outlook does.
Pro-tip: merge an email directly into your daily recurring task for triaging your inboxes, if applicable.
Working with imported emails
An imported email becomes a Sunsama task linked to the Outlook message. Click the Outlook icon on the task (or hover and press G) to open it in Outlook.
Outlook email details
Open the Sunsama task to see the whole Outlook conversation inside it. Browse and collapse the messages, and act on each message. Changes are made in Outlook:
- Mark read or unread
- Flag or clear the flag
- Categorize (add or remove categories)
To archive or delete an email, use the import and completion automations below, or open the email in Outlook.
Replying and forwarding
Click the Reply, Reply all or Forward button on a message. Write your message and click Send (⌘ Enter on Mac, Ctrl Enter on Windows). Sunsama saves a draft as you type, and a forward includes the original message’s attachments.
After you send, a Message sent notice with Undo appears for 10 seconds. Click Undo to get your draft back before it goes out.
Sending from Sunsama needs one extra Outlook permission. Until you grant it, the button reads Save & open in Outlook: Sunsama saves your draft and opens Outlook so you can send it there. To send from Sunsama instead, click the locked Send from Sunsama pill and choose Grant access. If your organization requires admin approval for apps, an admin needs to approve it once.
Your email signature isn’t added to replies sent from Sunsama, because Outlook doesn’t share it with other apps.
Interacting with Sunsama specific task information
Your associated Sunsama task acts like a worksheet for your Outlook email. Inside your Sunsama task, you can add notes, time tracking information, subtasks, and comments, all of which will not sync back to Outlook. Use your Sunsama task to track the minutia of the task itself.
In the mobile app, an imported email opens in your mail app. Reading and replying inside Sunsama is on web and desktop.
Automations
To add automations, click on the Automations tab at the top of the Outlook panel.
The automations you select will apply only to the Outlook account you are currently viewing.
Import and completion automations
Choose what Sunsama does to an email when you import it (Import Automations) or complete its task (Completion Automations). Click an action to add it; you can add several. The actions are mark as read or unread, add a flag, flag as complete, clear the flag, delete, and archive.
Sunny and Autoplan
Sunny can read your Outlook mail when you ask about it, for example “what did my manager email me about this week?”. Autoplan also looks at Outlook when it drafts your day. To stop Autoplan from using Outlook, open Integrations on the daily planning screen and turn Microsoft 365 off. That switch covers Outlook mail, Microsoft To Do and Microsoft Planner together.
Troubleshooting
Does Sunsama work with self-hosted Exchange servers?
In general, Sunsama does not have support for on-premises or self-hosted integrations as this creates many unique issues we do not have the capacity to support at this time. If your organization hosts Outlook on-premises, you may not be able to integrate your Outlook email.
Microsoft’s documentation is very unclear on this point as well.
We have customers with hosted Exchange servers that can integrate with Sunsama, while we have others that can’t. The reasons for not being able to vary, like the Exchange server versions being too old and not supporting the latest Microsoft Graph API, or some security setting that prevents the API from properly accessing the data.
One thing that is common to all that work, is that they login with a Microsoft account (meaning that they can login at login.live.com, for example), even with a hosted exchange server (which isn’t used for authentication, but for emails/calendars, etc.).
Can I open emails in Superhuman rather than Outlook?
Yes. See Opening emails in Superhuman rather than Outlook.
Do the actions I take on the email in Sunsama happen in Outlook?
Yes. If you mark an email read or unread, flag it, categorize it, or reply from Sunsama, that happens in Outlook. Archive and Delete happen in Outlook too when you set them as automations.