How to Give Your OpenClaw Agent an Email Address

The one thing your agent still can't do

OpenClaw is a capable agent. It can drive a browser, write and run code, and operate a terminal. But the moment a task requires email (confirming a signup, reading a one-time code, replying to a vendor), it stalls. There's no inbox it owns and no clean way to read what arrives. Giving it a real, authenticated mailbox closes that gap, and it takes about two minutes.

The recording and screenshots show an earlier signup flow. Follow the current steps below. Third-party verification emails require a paid plan; test Free by sending from your verified account email.

Step 1: Create your Robotomail account

Open Robotomail signup. Choose a mailbox name on the signup page. Send that mailbox an email from the address you want to use for your Robotomail account. Enter the verification code from Robotomail's reply, or use the verification link when it becomes available. Then confirm your name and create a password.

• Choose a mailbox
  Pick an available name such as triage-agent. Its platform address is triage-agent@robotomail.co.
• Send it an email
  Use the human email address you want attached to your account. Robotomail replies there with a verification code.
• Verify the address
  Enter the code, or use the verification link when it becomes available. This proves you control the sender address.
• Create your account
  Confirm your name and set a password. Your agent uses an API key or OAuth connection, not this password.

Your first email stays in the mailbox when you create your account. Free includes 1 mailbox, 10 sends and 10 receives per month, only between your agent and your verified email address. No credit card, no expiry. Allowances reset on the first of each month (UTC). Upgrade to email other people or use a custom domain. Paid plans are billed when you upgrade, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Step 2: Create and save your API key

Choose the API path during setup to create a key, or finish onboarding and open API keys in the dashboard. Email verification enables access under your plan's limits; payment is optional for Free. If you explicitly selected a paid plan before signup, checkout comes before agent/API setup.

Now grab your API key. Go to API keys, click Create key, give it a name your future self will recognize (for example openclaw-agent), and Robotomail shows the full key exactly once. It starts with rm_.

Copy that key directly into a secret manager like 1Password, don't leave it in a scratch file and don't paste it into a chat window. If you lose it, you can't recover it; you just create a new one and delete the old. The key is the agent's entire credential, so treat it like a password.

Step 3: Ask OpenClaw to install the skill

Here's the trick: you don't install anything yourself. You just ask your agent. Tell OpenClaw to install the Robotomail skill, then point it at your API key in 1Password, don't paste the secret into the chat. The agent pulls the key, connects, and is ready to send and receive real email.

Install the robotomail skill.

My Robotomail API key is in 1Password under "Robotomail".
Pull it from there. Don't ask me to paste it into the chat.

Pointing the agent at a vault reference instead of a pasted key keeps the secret out of the transcript and logs. The skill exposes a small set of tools (send, list, read, and reply) so the agent has everything it needs and nothing it doesn't. See the full agent skill.

Live demo: watch it work

For a Free test, send a verification-style message yourself from your verified account email. The third-party sender shown in the example requires a paid plan. Configure a webhook or SSE stream to receive events, or let your agent poll the API. The code is text in body_text; your agent extracts it.

{
  "event": "message.received",
  "timestamp": "2026-06-01T10:00:00.000Z",
  "data": {
    "message_id": "b2c3d4e5-6789-4abc-def0-222222222222",
    "mailbox_id": "a1b2c3d4-5678-4def-abcd-111111111111",
    "mailbox_address": "triage-agent@robotomail.co",
    "from": "no-reply@acme.com",
    "to": ["triage-agent@robotomail.co"],
    "subject": "Confirm your email",
    "body_text": "Your verification code is 481920. It expires in 10 minutes.",
    "thread_id": "c3d4e5f6-789a-4bcd-ef01-333333333333",
    "received_at": "2026-06-01T10:00:00.000Z"
  }
}

The agent grabs the code straight out of the body, finishes the signup, then forwards the confirmation to you, one POST to the messages endpoint. Robotomail returns the message ID. Inbound to outbound, fully autonomous.

curl -X POST https://api.robotomail.com/v1/mailboxes/mbx_triage/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer rm_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "to": ["you@company.com"],
    "subject": "Signup confirmed ✓",
    "bodyText": "Done. I entered the code and the account is active."
  }'

{
  "message": {
    "id": "b2c3d4e5-6789-4abc-def0-222222222222",
    "direction": "OUTBOUND",
    "toAddresses": ["you@company.com"],
    "status": "SENT",
    "threadId": "c3d4e5f6-789a-4bcd-ef01-333333333333"
  }
}

Going further

Need more? It's all there. Three of the most common next steps:

• Bring your own custom domain
  The platform domain (@robotomail.co) is great for getting started. When you want the agent to send as agent@yourcompany.com, upgrade to a paid plan and add a custom domain. Robotomail generates the DNS records you need (MX, a send MX, SPF, DMARC, and one or more DKIM records) and verifies them as soon as propagation completes.
• Fire a webhook on every inbound message
  Register a webhook URL and Robotomail POSTs every inbound message to it within seconds of receipt, signed with HMAC-SHA256 so you can verify it before trusting the payload.
• Subscribe to a live event stream
  No public URL to expose? Open a server-sent event (SSE) connection to GET /v1/events and the agent streams inbound events over a single long-lived request, no webhook endpoint required.

curl -X POST https://api.robotomail.com/v1/webhooks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer rm_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://your-server.com/webhook",
    "events": ["message.received"]
  }'

$ npx @robotomail/cli domain verify acme.com
⏳ checking DNS...
✓ MX       propagated
✓ SPF      valid
✓ DKIM     aligned
✓ DMARC    policy ok
✓ acme.com is fully verified.

GET /v1/events?events=message.received
Authorization: Bearer rm_your_api_key
Accept: text/event-stream

# Each inbound message arrives as a standard SSE frame:
id: 1710700000000-0000-a3f1
event: message.received
data: {"event":"message.received","timestamp":"2026-06-01T10:00:00.000Z","data":{"message_id":"b2c3d4e5-...","mailbox_address":"triage-agent@robotomail.co","from":"no-reply@acme.com","subject":"Confirm your email","body_text":"Your verification code is 481920.","received_at":"2026-06-01T10:00:00.000Z"}}

The stream replays missed events on reconnect via Last-Event-ID, see the Events (SSE) API docs for the full frame format and reconnect semantics.

For the full picture (the four agent tools, error handling, and a copy-paste signup-to-send walkthrough) see the longer guide for any AI agent and the dedicated OpenClaw use-case page.

Frequently asked questions