FAQ & troubleshooting

The usual reasons, in order:

• You haven't connected an AI yet. Airbox needs your API key to do anything. Set one up under Connections.
• You're emailing from an address Airbox doesn't allow. By default only you (the account owner) can use your address. Send from the email you signed up with, or add other senders in the dashboard.
• Replies are turned off. Check the “Email a reply back” toggle on the inbox, and make sure you didn't include !noreply in the subject.
• The reply went to spam. Check your spam folder and mark it “not spam” so future replies land in your inbox.
• You used an old address. If you rotated your address, the previous one stops working immediately.
• Your AI provider may be rate limited, or you may have reached your limit for billing, credits, or tokens. We'll try to notify you if we can, but you may need to check your provider's website or dashboard for more information.

Every email Airbox receives shows up in Logs & Activity with its status — that's the fastest way to see what happened.

A plain forward defaults to “summarize and list action items.” To ask for something specific, put the instruction on the trusted surface — the subject line, the first body line with command symbols (@ # ! -), or a (* … *) block at the top. Writing “please translate this” in plain prose won't work — only lines with command syntax (or inside (* … *)) count as instructions. That's what keeps forwarded emails from hijacking your AI.

Subject: @claude translate this to Spanish

—or at the top of the body:—

(* @claude #reply draft a polite decline *)

---------- Forwarded message ----------

See the examples for copy-paste patterns.

Yes. Airbox connects you to your own AI account, so the provider bills you directly for what their model does — usually a small amount per email. Airbox's own plan covers using the service itself. You're never paying twice for the same thing: one bill from your AI provider, one (often free) plan from Airbox.

No, and this trips up almost everyone. ChatGPT Plus is the subscription for the chat website and app. Airbox (like any tool that talks to OpenAI) needs API access, which is a separate thing with its own key and its own pay-as-you-go billing. The good news: API usage is cheap for typical email volumes, and our ChatGPT setup guide walks you through getting the key step by step.

Your email is sent only to the AI provider you choose — no one else — and your API keys are encrypted in storage and never shown in replies or logs. Only senders you allow can use your address, and you can rotate an address instantly if it ever leaks. For the full picture, see the security guide.

Either works. Forward when you've already received the email and want the AI to act on it. BCC your Airbox address while composing a new email when you want a copy processed quietly without the other recipients seeing it. Not sure what these mean? The glossary has plain definitions.

Any of them work — pick the one you already have an account with, or the one you trust most. You can connect more than one and choose per email. Claude, ChatGPT (OpenAI), and Gemini all have beginner-friendly setup guides under Connections.