Connect an app from chat

What this page is for

Sometimes a bot needs one of your apps, such as your mail or your calendar, to do what you asked. When that app is not connected yet, the bot puts a connect card in the chat instead of asking you to go and find a settings screen. This page explains that card: the short note on how signing in stays safe, and the card's waiting and connected states.

The connect card

The card names the app the bot needs, and, when it is about one account of that app, which one. It has one button: Connect followed by the app's name.

The trust note

Pressing Connect does not open anything yet. It first shows a short note on how signing in stays safe:

• You sign in on the app's own secure page, not here.
• The bot never sees the password you use for that app.
• You decide what it can do, and it asks before it changes anything.
• You can manage or disconnect the app any time from Connect apps.

Press Continue to start signing in. Press Cancel (or Escape) to close the note: nothing is opened and nothing is connected.

Waiting and connected

After Continue, the app's own sign-in page opens in a new window. When there is no account to sign in yet, the Connect apps sheet opens on that app instead, so you can add one there.

The same card in the chat now says it is waiting for you to finish signing in. Finish signing in on the app's page; you do not need to come back and press anything.

Once the account is connected, the same card changes to Connected and shows how many accounts of that app are connected. No new card is added to the chat. The card then has two buttons:

• Add account opens the app in Connect apps, where you can connect a second account.
• Manage opens the app in Connect apps, where you change what it can do or disconnect it.

If you scroll back to an older connect card for an app you have connected since, it shows Connected too.

On your phone

The phone app shows the same card. While a sign-in is waiting it says so, and once the app is connected it shows Connected with the number of accounts and Manage. A server that does not send the card's state yet shows the card as before.