What the Email Frequency Check Rate does and why 10 minutes

VICIdial does not get pushed email the instant it arrives. It logs into your mailbox on a schedule, grabs whatever is new, and queues it for agents. The Email Frequency Check Rate is the field that sets that schedule, measured in minutes, and picking the right number keeps mail flowing without getting your account locked.

It is tempting to set it as low as possible so email reaches an Agent faster. But there are limits in both directions, and the floor is not really five minutes for most people. It is ten.

The limits, top and bottom

• Five minutes is the fastest VICIdial will check. You cannot set it lower than that.
• Many providers lock an account after three login attempts in fifteen minutes. A five-minute rate brushes right up against that.
• Gmail caps outside applications at one check per ten minutes. Anything faster will not help and can cause failures.

Put those together and ten minutes is the sensible default. It stays clear of the three-logins-in-fifteen-minutes lockout window, and it satisfies Gmail's cap. If you are on Gmail specifically, treat ten as a minimum, not a suggestion.

How the check cycle runs

flowchart TD
  A["Timer hits check rate"] --> B["Log into mailbox"]
  B --> C{"New messages"}
  C -->|yes| D["Pull and queue to in-group"]
  C -->|no| E["Wait for next interval"]
  D --> F["Agent handles email"]
  E --> A
  F --> A
  B -->|too frequent| G["Provider locks account"]

The trade-off is real but small. At ten minutes, a customer email might sit for up to ten minutes before it shows up in the queue and gets handed to an Ingroup. For most support and sales inboxes that is well within expectations. Phone work is the channel for instant response; email carries a built-in tolerance for a short wait.

If you genuinely need a tighter loop, the better move is not to crank the rate, it is to make sure mail is actually flowing and that agents pick up quickly once it lands. A message that waits ten minutes in the mailbox but then gets answered and dispositioned in two beats one that arrives fast and sits unread because nobody is staffed.

Picking a number for your inbox

There is no single right value, only a sensible band. Here is how to think about it:

• On Gmail, set ten and leave it. Faster will not be honoured and risks failed checks.
• On a provider that locks after three logins in fifteen minutes, ten keeps you comfortably under that ceiling.
• On your own mail server with no such cap, five is allowed, but only reach for it if a few minutes of delay genuinely matters to your callers.

Remember the rate is per email account, so if you run several mailboxes feeding different teams, each carries its own setting. A high-traffic sales inbox and a quiet supplier inbox do not have to share a number. Set each one to the value that fits how fast that team needs to see new mail and what its provider will tolerate.

Gmail in particular has a few extra hoops beyond the check rate; the Gmail setup walkthrough covers them. For how the email account feeds groups and where chat and voice fit, see the inbound email and chat guide. The same record then flows to your Lead list once an agent applies a Disposition. If you would rather not babysit provider quirks at all, our pricing page lays out managed hosting with email already configured.