Adding Accounts

Sparrow works with virtually any email provider. You can add as many accounts as you need. Sparrow auto-detects your provider from your email address and pre-fills the settings for you.

Gmail

  1. Go to Settings > Accounts > Add Account
  2. Choose Gmail
  3. Sign in with your Google account in the browser window that opens
  4. Allow access — that's it

Sparrow uses Google's official OAuth2 sign-in with PKCE security. You don't need to create an "app password" or change any Gmail settings.

Outlook / Microsoft 365

  1. Go to Settings > Accounts > Add Account
  2. Choose Outlook
  3. Sign in with your Microsoft account
  4. Allow access

Works with personal Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live accounts, and work/school Microsoft 365 accounts.

iCloud / Apple Mail

  1. Go to Settings > Accounts > Add Account
  2. Choose Apple
  3. Enter your iCloud email address
  4. Enter an app-specific password (not your Apple ID password)

To create an app-specific password, go to appleid.apple.com, sign in, go to Sign-In and Security > App-Specific Passwords, and generate one. Works with @icloud.com, @me.com, and @mac.com addresses.

Other email providers

For Fastmail, ProtonMail (via Bridge), Yahoo, your company email, or any other provider:

  1. Go to Settings > Accounts > Add Account
  2. Choose Other
  3. Enter your email address and password
  4. Fill in the server details (your provider usually lists these in their help pages):
SettingWhat to enter
Incoming servere.g. imap.fastmail.com
Incoming portUsually 993 (TLS)
Outgoing servere.g. smtp.fastmail.com
Outgoing portUsually 465 (TLS) or 587 (STARTTLS)

Sparrow tests the connection before saving — you'll know right away if something is wrong.

Managing multiple accounts

Once you've added accounts, you can:

  • See all messages together in the unified inbox
  • Switch between accounts from the sidebar
  • Set a default account for sending new messages
  • Create per-account rules and templates or make them global across all accounts

Password safety

Your passwords and sign-in tokens are stored in your operating system's secure keyring — the same place your system keeps Wi-Fi passwords and other credentials. On Windows this is the Credential Manager, on macOS the Keychain, and on Linux the Secret Service. Sparrow never stores passwords as plain text.