Inbox Overview
Receive and read incoming email for official government domains in Taifa Mail webmail.
Taifa Mail receives mail sent to addresses on your verified institution domains and stores it in hosted mailboxes. Officers read and reply in webmail at mail.govconnect.ke, or in any IMAP/POP client. ICT administrators can also inspect inbound routing in Developer → Email Logs.
The legacy dashboard inbox archive has been retired. Visiting Inbox in the main app redirects to webmail. Incoming mail is no longer triaged in the govconnect.ke workspace UI.
Requirements
For Taifa Mail to receive mail for a domain, that domain's MX record must point to Taifa Mail:
| Record Type | Name | Value | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| MX | yourdomain.com | mx1.govconnect.ke | 10 |
The domain must also be verified for sending (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). Confirm the MX record on the domain detail page under MX status.
To read mail in a hosted mailbox (webmail or IMAP), ICTA must have approved your institution's mailbox allocation and the domain must have mail hosting enabled.
Changing MX records redirects all incoming mail for the domain to Taifa Mail. If the domain already receives mail through another provider such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, plan the migration carefully before changing the root domain. See Email forwarding.
How it works
- Someone sends an email to an address on your domain, for example
info@health.go.keor a reply to one of your sends. - Because the MX record points to Taifa Mail, the message arrives at Taifa Mail's mail servers.
- Taifa Mail accepts the message, stores it in the recipient's mailbox (if one exists), and runs any matching forwarding rules.
- The officer reads the message in webmail or their mail client over IMAP/POP.
Webmail vs. mail clients vs. forwarding
| Path | What it does |
|---|---|
| Webmail (mail.govconnect.ke) | Native 3-pane inbox in the browser. Sign in with the mailbox address and an app password. |
| IMAP / POP | Same mailbox in Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or a phone. See IMAP & POP mailboxes. |
| Forwarding | Relays a copy to an external address or HTTPS endpoint without replacing the mailbox. See Forwarding setup. |
Forwarding and hosted mailboxes work together: a message can land in the officer's mailbox and be forwarded to a department system.
Missing MX banner
If a domain's MX record is missing or no longer points to Taifa Mail, the app shows a yellow banner with a link to the domain's DNS settings when you open Forwarding or related mail screens. Incoming mail cannot be received until the MX record is corrected.
Next steps
- Webmail: sign in at mail.govconnect.ke and use the three-pane inbox
- Managing messages: folders, search, labels, and compose in webmail
- IMAP & POP mailboxes: connect Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird
- Inbound API: webmail REST endpoints and the admin inbound log