How the bridge works
A technical look at how an email in your inbox becomes a WhatsApp message — and how a WhatsApp reply becomes a real email, sent from your real address.
1. Two ways to connect a mailbox
Forwarding address (most accounts). We generate you a dedicated address like
notify-xxxxxx@wittynotify.co.za. Set your existing mailbox to forward there, or give
that address out directly — either way, mail addressed to it flows straight into the pipeline below.
Bridging a real, already-live mailbox. If you want WittyNotify layered onto a mailbox you already use in Outlook or webmail — without disturbing it — we use a mail-server feature called a recipient BCC map. It's configured at the mail-server level, entirely outside our application code: every message delivered to your real address also gets a silent copy routed into our ingest pipeline. Your real inbox keeps receiving mail exactly as it always has; nothing about your existing setup changes.
2. Inbound: email → WhatsApp
Each inbound message is parsed for its sender, subject, body, and attachments, then the body and any attachments are encrypted before they're ever written to disk (see encryption & privacy for the details). We check your allowlist and any mute/VIP rules, then push a WhatsApp notification — the sender, subject, a short preview, and tappable buttons — to every WhatsApp number you've verified and switched notifications on for.
Tap the inbox button any time and you'll get your unread emails as a native WhatsApp list — tap a row to open it, or just reply with its number.
3. Outbound: WhatsApp → email
Tapping Reply is the only thing that ever arms a reply — just reading an email never does. Once armed, what you type becomes the email body, your signature (if you've set one) is appended, and you're shown a preview with an explicit Send Email button before anything actually goes out. Nothing sends by accident.
By default, replies go out through our platform's mail relay from your forwarding address. If you'd rather a reply genuinely come from your own mailbox — with that provider's own DKIM/SPF/DMARC — you can connect your real SMTP credentials once, and every reply after that is relayed through your own mailbox instead. Either way, your real recipients see a proper email, not a WhatsApp forward.
4. WhatsApp is just the client
We hold the WhatsApp Business API connection so you don't have to set up a Meta Business account. You verify your number with a one-time code, and from then on WhatsApp behaves like any other email client: an inbox, search, archive/star/delete, threading, attachments, and reply — just reachable from the app you already have open all day.
Send menu at any time to get your forwarding address, an unread count, and one tap
to every core action — no typed commands required, though they all still work if you prefer typing.
5. Sending programmatically: API & templates
Beyond replying by hand in WhatsApp, an API key lets your own systems
send WhatsApp messages directly through POST /v1/messages. For messages you send
repeatedly with only a few details changing — order confirmations, appointment reminders — create a
reusable message template with {{placeholders}} once,
then reference it by name and fill in the variables at send time instead of writing out the text every call.
Want the full picture?
See how encryption & privacy work, or check the FAQ for common questions about limits, plans, and setup.
Witty Notify
Your email inbox, right inside WhatsApp.
Product