EP Email Inbox

EP Email Inbox polls an IMAP mailbox and handles incoming email with AI. Useful for first-line support where most questions can be answered by an AI given your site context, and the remainder are routed to a human.

Published by ElmsPark Studio.

Overview

How it runs:

1. IMAP polling against your support mailbox (e.g. support@yoursite.com) on a configurable interval.
2. For each new message, the plugin reads the sender, subject, and body.
3. The message is sent to your configured LLM provider with context about your site, products, and FAQs.
4. The LLM decides whether it can answer. If yes, it drafts a reply. If no, it flags the message for human attention.
5. Auto-replies (when confident) go out through EP Email’s SMTP.
6. Flagged messages sit in the inbox dashboard for you to handle manually.

Every message, auto-replied or flagged, is logged with full transcript so you can audit what the AI did.

Good fits for AI auto-reply

• “What are your opening hours?” — context says so.
• “How do I reset my password?” — standard instruction.
• “Is feature X included in the Pro plan?” — pricing/features are site context.
• “My download link expired, can I have another?” — plugin can check orders and send a new link.

Not good fits

• Complaints. Always route to humans.
• Legal questions. Always route to humans.
• Technical questions specific to the customer’s setup. AI guesses; a human can check the actual server.
• Anything where the customer is upset. The AI handles routine enquiries; emotion needs a person.

Requirements

• PageMotor 0.8.2b or later
• EP Email (required)
• EP Suite base class
• An IMAP mailbox (your support email account)
• An LLM provider API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, or any supported)
• PHP IMAP extension installed on your server

Installation

1. Install EP Email first.
2. Download ep-email-inbox.zip from the EP Suite downloads page.
3. Upload via Plugins → Manage Plugins. Activate.
4. Open Plugin Settings → EP Email Inbox.

Settings

IMAP connection

• Server. IMAP host (e.g. imap.fastmail.com).
• Port. 993 for SSL.
• Username / Password. Mailbox credentials.
• Mailbox folder. Usually INBOX.
• Poll interval. 5, 15, 30, or 60 minutes.

LLM

• Provider. Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.
• API key. Provider credential.
• Model. Pick one that balances quality and cost.

Behaviour

• Confidence threshold. If the AI’s self-reported confidence is below this, flag for human instead of auto-replying. Default 80%.
• Signature. Text appended to every auto-reply.
• Always flag these keywords. Comma-separated. Messages containing any keyword are always routed to a human regardless of AI confidence. Good for “refund”, “complaint”, “urgent”, “lawyer”.

Context for the AI

• Site description. A paragraph about what your site does.
• Product/service list. What you sell, with prices if relevant.
• FAQ context. Paste your FAQs. The AI uses this to answer routine questions.
• Brand voice. Tone guidance, e.g. “Friendly but professional. No emojis. Sign off with ‘Best, the team.’” The plugin’s default system prompt instructs the AI to match the customer’s English variant (preserves British, American, Australian, etc. — does not force a regional spelling). Override that default in this field if you want to force one variant.

Inbox dashboard

Lists every message the plugin has processed:

• Auto-replied (AI handled it; reply shown).
• Flagged (awaiting human; AI’s reasoning shown).
• Failed (error during processing).

For flagged messages, you can click Draft reply to generate a suggested reply the same way EP Email AI Reply does, or write your own. Either way, sending goes through EP Email.

Audit

Every AI interaction is logged:

• Original message.
• AI’s proposed reply.
• Confidence score.
• Whether auto-reply was sent or flagged.
• Cost of the LLM call (for API-billed providers).

Logs are retained for 90 days by default.

Troubleshooting

“IMAP connection fails”

Check:

• Host and port are correct.
• Username is the full email address.
• App-specific password if your mail provider requires one (Gmail, Fastmail).
• PHP IMAP extension installed (phpinfo() should list IMAP).

“Plugin polls but no messages are being processed”

Check the poll log on the settings page. If it shows “No new messages”, the mailbox is empty (or all messages are already marked as seen). IMAP polling only picks up new unseen messages.

“Auto-replies are going to the wrong people”

The plugin replies to the Reply-To header if present, otherwise the From. If someone emailed you from an alias, replies might go to the alias unless their mail system rewrites. Test with a colleague first.

“AI is confidently wrong about my products”

Tighten the site description and FAQ context. The AI only knows what you tell it. More context = fewer wrong answers. Also lower the confidence threshold to flag more messages for human review.

“Auto-replies sound robotic”

Rewrite the brand voice setting. “Friendly but professional” is generic. Be specific: “Reply in plain English. Short paragraphs. One clear answer per paragraph. No buzzwords.”

“Cost is going up on the LLM API”

Switch to a smaller model (Haiku vs Opus). Or raise the poll interval to reduce frequency. Or add more keywords to the always-flag list so only straightforward messages hit the AI.

Feedback and corrections

For a quick question about this plugin, EP Support inside your admin is the fastest option. The chat widget sits on every EP plugin settings page and knows which one you’re on, with starter questions and links preloaded for that exact screen.

For anything bigger — a bug report, a feature request, or a “how do I…” that needs a real reply — open a ticket at help.elmspark.com. A real person, helped by AI, writes the reply. Usually within a few hours. Tickets don’t disappear into the void.