Connections is where Brief's reach is decided. Everything Brief knows comes from what is connected here, which makes this the screen to check first when a briefing looks thin.
Three groups sit on it. Accounts holds every account Brief syncs from or sends through: Google, Microsoft, Todoist, Slack and WhatsApp. For WhatsApp, see Connecting WhatsApp to Brief. Agent tools is where you connect MCP servers, so their tools sit alongside Brief's own in chat. Email aliases lists other addresses you send or receive mail as, such as a Gmail alias, so Brief treats mail from them as yours.
This article is about operating the screen. For what each of those accounts brings in and what Brief takes from it, see Supported sources and what Brief syncs.
Reading an account row
Accounts shows one card per provider, with the provider's logo and name as its title. The card that holds your primary account comes first, and the other cards follow A to Z. Inside a card, the primary account comes first, then the default account, then the rest A to Z by address.
Each account is one row. The row shows the address, a Primary label on the primary account, a Default label on a provider's default account, and a status label only when something is wrong. Under the address is one line: "Last sync" with a date when all is well, otherwise a sentence naming the problem. At most one fix button sits on the row, and every row has Manage. A provider card ends with Add another and the provider's name, such as Add another Google account, when you can connect that provider from your account. It does not show on a provider that is not offered to you.
Manage opens a dialog titled with the provider, such as "Google account", with the address under it. Sync reports each capability separately (Email, Calendar, Contacts, Chat, Tasks) because one account syncs all of them independently. Configuration is where a Google or Microsoft account offers Manage calendars. Done closes the dialog.
Permissions is the section worth understanding, and it works the opposite way round to how it looks. Every row is a permission Brief does not have, with a Grant access button beside it, and Grant all access at the foot when more than one is outstanding. Grant them all and the section disappears: on an account that does not need reconnecting, no Permissions section means Brief already has everything it asked for.
On the account row, the same gap shows up as a label and a fix. One missing permission reads "1 permission off" and offers Grant access. Two or more read, for example, "6 permissions off" and offer Grant all access.
Brief describes each permission in the account's own terms:
- Read your email: "Read your email to summarize and surface what matters."
- Compose Email: "Draft replies and new messages on your behalf." Google only.
- Send: "Send the messages you approve." Microsoft only, and separate from drafting on purpose.
- Calendar: "See your schedule and add or update events."
- Contacts: "Recognize the people you work with and add or update contacts."
- Tasks: "Track your to-dos and create or update tasks."
- Chat: "Bring chat conversations into your briefings and send messages you approve."
- Directory: "Search your organization's directory to find people and their contact details."
No single account shows all eight. Signing in already grants read-only access to your mail, calendar and contacts, so Read your email is usually satisfied from the start and rarely appears; composing is a Google permission and sending is a Microsoft one, so no account can be asked for both. The Calendar and Contacts rows you do see are asking for the write half: adding and updating, not merely seeing.
What is left in the list is the specific, named gap between what Brief can reach and what you have asked it to do. A Chat row still sitting there is the reason chat is not in your briefings, however much of it you do, and the button beside it is the fix.
Connecting another account
Connect another account lists only the services you have no account for yet, A to Z, each with its own Connect button and a line naming what it brings in. WhatsApp appears there when it is not connected. The card disappears when there is nothing left to connect.
To add a second account from a provider you already have, use Add another and the provider's name, such as Add another Google account, at the foot of that provider's card. The button shows only for providers you can connect from your account. Brief supports several accounts at once, including several from the same provider.
You can hold up to 5 connected accounts, across every provider. At 5, a new connection is refused until you remove one under Removing an account. Reconnecting an account you already have does not count against the limit.
Which accounts you connect is the strongest noise control Brief has, and whether to connect a second account from the same provider is the decision that matters most. See Tuning your daily brief for why.
Manage calendars
A Google or Microsoft account with several calendars has Manage calendars, under Configuration in its Manage dialog. The calendar list opens inside the same dialog, and Back returns to the account. You choose which ones Brief reads rather than taking all of them. Brief starts with the account's primary calendar and nothing else; every other one is a checkbox here, saved as you tick it.
This is the fix in both directions. A birthdays calendar or a shared team roster produces events that look schedulable and are not, so leave those off. A team calendar carrying real meetings is the opposite case, and Brief will not see it until you turn it on.
For which calendars are worth enabling, and what to do about a calendar that lives on another account, see Email, contacts, and calendar best practices.
When an account looks wrong
The label on the row summarises; the Sync section in the Manage dialog is the fuller answer, one entry per capability, worst first. Four states turn up there:
- Active: syncing normally.
- Syncing: a sync is running right now.
- Pending: nothing has reported yet. A freshly connected account reads this way, and so does one that never got started.
- Error: Brief holds the connection but a sync is failing.
An account whose access has been withdrawn is a different matter, and the row says so outright: it reads Needs reconnection and shows a Reconnect button. That usually means consent was revoked on the provider's side, in a Google or Microsoft security screen and sometimes by an admin, and nothing in Brief did it. Reconnecting re-asks for consent. If your admin tightened third-party access, that shows up here. See If Google blocks your sign-in or If Microsoft blocks your sign-in.
A sync can also fail while Brief's access is still valid. When no permission is missing, the row then reads Error, with "Not syncing" and the capabilities that are affected, and it has no fix button, because there is nothing for you to grant. If a permission is also missing, the row shows the missing-permission label and fix instead, and the sync error shows in the Sync section of the Manage dialog. Because Sync reports per capability, the dialog can be honest about a partial failure. Email in error while Calendar is still active is a real and ordinary state, and no single word could describe it.
Removing an account
Select Manage on the account, then Remove. The dialog closes and Brief asks Remove this account? before doing it.
Brief has one primary account. It is the Google or Microsoft account whose address Brief uses as yours. Each of Google and Microsoft also has one default account, which Brief picks first when it needs an account from that provider. The primary account is the default of its own provider.
To change the primary account, select Make primary in the same dialog. It is offered for Google and Microsoft accounts that are not already primary and do not need reconnecting.
To change the default account of the provider that does not hold your primary, select Make default. It is offered for Google and Microsoft accounts that are not already the default and do not need reconnecting. On the provider that holds your primary account, Make primary is the way to change the default, so only that button shows.
Removing stops the sync. For what happens to the data Brief already built from that account, see Account and data control.