Connecting Sources

Sources are the tools Vrge watches in the background. When you connect one, Vrge reads from it quietly and turns what it finds into proposals for you to review. Every source is read-only. Vrge cannot send, delete, move, or modify anything in your connected accounts.

You don't need to connect everything. Most people start with email. It's where client activity lives. You can add more sources later from Settings → Sources.

You can connect more than one of the same kind. Two Gmail addresses, a work calendar and a personal one, a business account and a card — connect them all. Once a source is connected, an Add another button appears beside it, and you'll be asked which account to sign in with so you don't reconnect the same one twice. There is no extra charge for a second account, or a fifth.

Each account is watched on its own: a problem with one never hides the others, and each keeps its own place in the timeline so adding a new mailbox doesn't make an old one start again. If the same meeting turns up on two connected calendars, Vrge flags both in the Inbox rather than quietly billing the time twice: which of the two is the real one is your call, not a guess it should make for you.

Connecting Gmail or Google Workspace

Gmail connects with Sign in with Google. Vrge asks for one read-only permission (gmail.readonly) and cannot send, delete, label or modify anything in your mailbox. It works the same way on a personal @gmail.com address and on a Google Workspace domain.

1. Open Vrge. Go to Settings → Sources and click Gmail.
2. Click Connect Gmail. Your browser opens Google's own sign-in page. Vrge never sees your password.
3. Grant read-only access. Google shows exactly what is being requested. Approve it and the window returns you to Vrge.
4. That's it. You'll see a green Connected badge, and the observer starts reading the last few days of mail within a minute.

The access token is stored on your own device and Vrge calls Gmail directly. The token never passes through a Vrge server. You can revoke it at any time from your Google account permissions, or by disconnecting inside Vrge.

Connecting other email providers

Mailboxes that are not Gmail or Outlook connect over IMAP, using an app password rather than a sign-in button. The dropdown in the Connect IMAP dialog has presets with the correct server settings already filled in. Pick your provider, generate an app password on their website, and paste it. (IMAP also stays available for Gmail if you would rather not use OAuth at all.)

• iCloud Mail: generate an App-Specific Password at appleid.apple.com under Sign-In and Security. Requires 2-factor auth on your Apple ID.
• Outlook / Microsoft 365: don't use IMAP for these. Outlook has its own entry in Settings → Sources that signs you in with Microsoft, the same way Gmail does. There is no Outlook preset in the IMAP list.
• Fastmail: Settings → Privacy & Security → Integrations → New app password. Pick “IMAP + SMTP” access.
• Yahoo Mail: login.yahoo.com/account/security → Generate app password.
• Zoho Mail: accounts.zoho.com → Security → App Passwords.
• ProtonMail: requires Proton Bridge, a desktop app that exposes your mailbox as IMAP on your own computer. Bridge needs a paid Proton plan (Mail Plus, Unlimited or Business) and has to be running while Vrge syncs. Pick ProtonMail (via Proton Bridge) from the Vrge provider dropdown.
• Anything else (self-hosted, corporate mail, etc.): pick Other from the dropdown and type in your server's IMAP address and port. Your mail provider's support pages usually have these under “mail client setup.”

What Vrge does (and doesn't do) with your mail

Does

• Open a secure (TLS-encrypted) connection directly to your mail server. No Vrge cloud relay in the middle.
• Read the subject, sender, and body of messages in your inbox to find new-client inquiries, project updates, and vendor receipts.
• Store a local list of message IDs it has seen so it never proposes the same email twice.

Does not

• Mark messages as read. Your unread count stays the same as before you connected.
• Send, reply, forward, delete, move, or modify any message.
• Send anything to a cloud AI without you choosing to. Local Ollama sends nothing off your machine at all. If you connect your own cloud key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google) the default is to send the full content to your provider account — it is your key and your data — and you can switch on redaction, which replaces names, emails, addresses and dollar amounts before the call. Settings → AI shows exactly what gets sent, in every mode.

Disconnecting at any time

Go to Settings → Sources, find your mailbox, and click Disconnect. Vrge immediately deletes the stored credential: the OAuth token for Gmail or Outlook, or the app password for an IMAP mailbox. For a complete lockout, also revoke Vrge's access at the provider: Google account permissions for Gmail, or the app-password list at Apple, Fastmail and the rest. Even someone with a copy of your Vrge data would then be unable to read your mail.

Other sources

Email is the most important source, but Vrge can watch four others. All are optional and all are read-only.

• Calendar: Google Calendar, Outlook, CalDAV, or an .ics feed. Turns meetings into project activity, time entries, and deadlines.
• Files: a folder on your computer, including your Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox sync folder. Surfaces deliverables and proposals Vrge spots by filename.
• Banking: Plaid, Stripe, Square, or a CSV statement export. Matches incoming deposits to open invoices and flags business expenses.
• Accounting: QuickBooks Online. Reads your invoices so they line up with the rest of your books in Vrge. Read-only: the adapter is locked to a single read endpoint and refuses anything else, so Vrge cannot alter your QuickBooks data.

Kill switch

If something ever feels wrong, go to Settings → AI & Intelligence and hit Pause AI. One click stops the observer and cancels any AI calls in progress. No “are you sure” dialog. Hit Resume AI when you want it back.