Connecting Your Email Inbox

A huge amount of useful information arrives in your inbox: booking confirmations from channels you haven't connected yet, direct inquiries from past guests, supplier notices, owner messages. Vanio can read these emails, understand what they say, and turn them into reservations, messages, or tasks automatically.

This guide walks through connecting Gmail in one click, or any other provider using standard mail settings.

Why connect your inbox

• Capture every booking. When a confirmation lands from Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, or a niche channel, Vanio extracts the dates, guest, and price and creates the reservation — no manual entry.
• Direct inquiries land in your dashboard. Guests who email you directly show up in the same timeline as channel messages.
• Centralize owner and supplier communication. Track owner approvals, vendor invoices, and maintenance updates alongside everything else.
• AI replies on your behalf. With your permission, the assistant can draft or send replies from your address.

Connecting Gmail

From Settings → Email → Connect inbox, click Connect Gmail. You'll be redirected to Google's sign-in page.

1. Sign in with the Google account you want to connect
2. Review the permissions (read, send, modify mail)
3. Click Allow

You're back in Vanio in a few seconds with a green Connected badge. Vanio starts processing new emails immediately and can also scan the past 90 days for any reservations it should backfill.

The Google sign-in flow is the standard one used by every app that connects to Gmail. Vanio never sees your password.

Connecting other providers

If you use Outlook, Yahoo, Fastmail, iCloud, or a custom domain, connect via standard mail settings. Click Connect other → Add manually and enter:

• Your email address
• Your password or app password (most providers require an app password for third-party clients — there's a help link for each major provider)
• The incoming mail server (Vanio fills this in for popular providers)
• The outgoing mail server (same)

Click Test connection. Vanio verifies it can read and send mail, then saves the inbox.

What gets parsed

Once connected, Vanio scans incoming email for:

• Booking confirmations from any channel — known formats are matched instantly, new ones are learned over time
• Cancellations and modifications to existing reservations
• Payout notices from channels and payment processors
• Guest messages sent directly to your address
• Owner communications that mention specific properties

Everything else is left alone. Vanio doesn't touch personal email or anything outside the rental business.

Privacy and data handling

• Mail is processed in your account only. It is never used to train shared AI models.
• You can review exactly which emails Vanio touched from Settings → Email → Activity log.
• You can exclude specific senders, domains, or labels.
• You can pause processing at any time without disconnecting.

Sending email from Vanio

With permission to send, the assistant can reply to guest emails directly from your address — so guests see a reply from you, not from a Vanio address. You can require approval for every outgoing email or let the AI send autonomously based on your autopilot settings.

Disconnecting

From Settings → Email → your inbox → Disconnect, removes Vanio's access immediately. For Gmail, the access token is revoked at Google so even if Vanio kept a copy (it doesn't), it would stop working.

Disconnecting does not delete reservations or messages that were already created. They stay in your dashboard.

Common questions

Can I connect more than one inbox? Yes. Connect a separate inbox per brand, per region, or per owner. Each inbox has its own activity log and routing rules.

Will Vanio mark my emails as read? No, unless you turn that option on. By default, your inbox looks untouched.

What happens if Gmail signs me out? You'll see a yellow banner asking you to reconnect. New emails are paused until you do, then any backlog is processed in order.

Does this work with shared inboxes? Yes, as long as you can sign in to the shared account.