Setting up the household's inbox

Lantern can read a mailbox of the household’s own. Invites sent to it go into the Invited calendar, and Settings → Inbox lists every message it read with what it did. Lantern only reads: it never sends, replies, or moves mail.

Provider details were checked on 2026-10-24 against each provider’s own help pages, linked below. Providers change these rules, so check the linked page if something here no longer matches.

What you need

• A mailbox just for the household, such as [email protected]. You can use a personal one, but Lantern then reads all of its new mail, so a separate address is better.
• An app password for it. This is a password the provider makes for one app, which you can revoke without changing the account’s own. Most providers no longer let other apps sign in with the account’s main password.
• IMAP: the mailbox’s provider must offer it, with an app password. Lantern can’t sign in with Google’s or Microsoft’s own sign-in pages (OAuth).

Providers that work

Provider	IMAP server	Security and port	User name	Password
Gmail	imap.gmail.com	TLS, 993	The full address	An app password
iCloud Mail	imap.mail.me.com	TLS, 993	The address’s name before the @; if that fails, the full address	An app-specific password
Fastmail	imap.fastmail.com	TLS, 993	The full address	An app password

Gmail (app passwords, IMAP):

• IMAP is always on for personal accounts.
• App passwords need 2-Step Verification on the Google Account. Make one at Google Account → Security → App passwords.
• An account with Advanced Protection, with 2-Step Verification by security keys only, or one run by a work or school may not offer app passwords.

iCloud Mail (app-specific passwords, server settings):

• App-specific passwords need two-factor authentication on the Apple Account.
• Make one at account.apple.com, under Sign-In and Security → App-Specific Passwords.

Fastmail (server names and ports):

• Fastmail needs an app password; the account’s own password won’t work.
• Its IMAP is TLS from the start, not STARTTLS.

Any other provider with IMAP and app passwords works too. Use the server, port, and security its help pages give for IMAP. For a mail server on your own network, Lantern also offers STARTTLS and, as a last resort, no encryption at all; with none, the password travels unencrypted.

Providers that don’t work

• Outlook.com, Hotmail, and Microsoft 365: Microsoft is retiring passwords for IMAP in favour of its own sign-in (OAuth), which Lantern doesn’t support in 1.0 (Microsoft’s notice). An Outlook.com address can still forward its invites to a mailbox that works, as below.
• Proton Mail: other apps reach Proton only through Proton Mail Bridge, a desktop app for paid plans (Proton’s guide), not a server Lantern can sign in to.

Connecting it

1. In the Lantern app, as an admin, open Settings → Inbox.
2. Enter the IMAP server, choose the security (the port follows it), and enter the user name and the app password.
3. Leave the folder at INBOX, unless a filter puts the household’s mail in another folder.
4. Under Other allowed senders, add any address whose invites should arrive besides the family’s: a school, a club, or a grandparent.
5. Press Test and save. Lantern signs in and opens the folder before it saves. If that fails, it says why: a wrong password, a server it can’t reach, or a secure connection that failed.

Lantern starts with the newest message, so mail already in the mailbox isn’t imported. The password is stored encrypted, never shown again, and left out of the export. To change the folder or the senders later, leave the password blank.

Who can send to it

Lantern reads mail only from allowed senders:

• the sign-in addresses of the family’s active members;
• the other allowed senders you add.

Anything else is listed in the log as ignored, and nothing more of it is read. This stops strangers putting events in your calendar.

Forwarding. To forward invites from a personal address, add a forwarding rule there. A message forwarded as an attachment, or one whose From line still names the original sender, is checked against that sender, so add them to the allowed senders too.

What happens to an invite

• An invite adds its event to the Invited calendar, which the first invite makes. Settings → Calendars can rename it, recolour it, hide it, or set who its events are for.
• An update from the organizer changes the event.
• A cancellation removes it, or one occurrence of a repeating event.
• An older copy arriving late, or the same invite twice, changes nothing.
• Invited events are read only in Lantern, as a subscribed calendar’s are: only the organizer changes them.
• Lantern never answers invites. Accept or decline them where they arrived.

The log

Settings → Inbox lists every message Lantern read, newest first, with:

• who sent it and when;
• whether it was ignored, an invite, or had nothing for Lantern;
• what each invite did.

If the mailbox can’t be reached, the page says why, and Lantern keeps trying, waiting longer between tries.