Connecting Gmail

Connect Gmail and Monad can work in your mail for you — without ever handling your password. You connect once with your own Google sign-in, and agents use that access when they act on your behalf. While the connection is active, Library also maintains a read-only, owner-only mirror of supported mail so it can keep your private clusters current.

Gmail connects directly to Google, so Monad can search and read your mail, draft and send replies, and keep your inbox organized with labels.

What Google will ask for. When you connect, Google's consent screen lists the access you're granting — reading your mail, composing and sending messages, and managing labels and read state. That broader access is what lets an agent label a thread, mark something read, or send the reply you asked for; if you only want agents to read and draft, you can turn off the other tools per connector after connecting (see Choosing what agents can do below).

Connecting#

There's nothing to set up — Monad handles the Google connection for you, so you never create an OAuth app or paste any keys.

1. Open Settings → Connection Preferences (or the Connectors section on the Connections page) and find Gmail.
2. Click Add, then on the connector's page click Connect.
3. Sign in with Google and approve the requested access. You'll be returned to Monad with a green Connected badge.

Once Gmail is connected, its card turns into a dimmed Added tile and it shows up in your Connections list above — open it from there any time to manage or disconnect it.

From then on you can ask an agent things like "summarize my unread email" or "draft a reply to the last message from Sam" without thinking about credentials.

What Monad can do#

Monad acts as your account. It can:

• Search and read your messages and conversation threads.
• Draft replies and send messages.
• Archive threads without moving them to Trash. Archiving removes a thread from the Inbox while preserving its other labels and read state.
• Add and remove labels on threads and messages, and mark messages read or unread.
• Monad cannot move mail to Spam or Trash while organizing labels. Gmail automatically deletes mail from either location after 30 days. If you only want mail out of your Inbox, ask the agent to archive it instead.
• Create, rename, and delete labels.

They only ever touch Gmail — never your wider Google account or other services.

Choosing what agents can do#

Every Gmail tool can be turned off independently from the connector's page, so you can keep the connection but narrow what agents may do — for example, allow reading and drafting but block sending so an agent always leaves a draft for you to review. Turning a tool off here disables it for agents; it doesn't change the access you granted Google (that only changes when you reconnect or disconnect). Read-only tools appear first, followed by tools that can change Gmail; each group is alphabetical. A writes badge beside a tool's name marks the second group. These switches control agent tools. They do not pause Library's read-only mirror; disconnect Gmail to stop both uses of the connection.

How Gmail appears in Library#

Library incrementally mirrors a bounded recent history of Gmail threads and then keeps up with changes. Gmail objects and any clusters or summaries derived from them are always Only you. They cannot be shared with the workspace, pinned into a workspace cluster, or exposed to another member or workspace admin.

Open a Gmail source from a Library citation to see its Monad detail and use Open in source to continue in Gmail. The detail page does not offer Share to workspace for Gmail.

Reconnecting#

If you see an amber Reconnect needed badge, your access expired or the permissions changed. Click Reconnect and approve again, or choose Disconnect to remove your connection without reconnecting first.

Disconnecting#

Click Disconnect at any time and Monad immediately stops using your Gmail account. Disconnecting also revokes Monad's access at Google, so it's removed from your Google Apps with access to your account list — you don't need to do that step yourself. Library removes the mirrored Gmail objects and refreshes any owner-only clusters that used them. Your connection is yours alone — other members can't use it, and admins can see only that you've connected, never your mail or your tokens.