How do I use Pods for multi-tenant email?

Pods provide tenant isolation for multi-tenant applications. Each Pod is an isolated workspace containing its own inboxes, domains, threads, and drafts, completely separated from other Pods.

When to use Pods

Pods are designed for scenarios where you need to keep different customers’ or agents’ email data separate:

• SaaS platforms where each customer’s agents need their own email inboxes
• Agency setups where each client gets isolated email infrastructure
• AI agent platforms where different agents need dedicated, isolated workspaces
• White-label products where end users get email under their own brand

If you are only managing email for your own organization, Pods are optional. You can work directly with inboxes without creating them.

The hierarchy

Organization (your business)
    └── Pod (Customer A)
        ├── Inbox: support@customera.com
        ├── Inbox: sales@customera.com
        └── Domain: customera.com
    └── Pod (Customer B)
        ├── Inbox: hello@customerb.com
        └── Domain: customerb.com

Everything inside a Pod is isolated. Customer A cannot see Customer B’s emails, threads, or drafts.

Creating a Pod and its resources

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from agentmail import AgentMail
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client = AgentMail()
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# Create a Pod for a customer
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pod = client.pods.create(name="Acme Corp")
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# Create inboxes within that Pod
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support_inbox = client.pods.inboxes.create(
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    pod_id=pod.pod_id,
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    username="support",
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    domain="acme.com",
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    display_name="Acme Support"
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)
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sales_inbox = client.pods.inboxes.create(
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    pod_id=pod.pod_id,
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    username="sales",
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    domain="acme.com",
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    display_name="Acme Sales"
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)

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# Use your internal customer ID as the client_id
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pod = client.pods.create(
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    name="Acme Corp",
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    client_id="customer_12345"
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)

Listing resources within a Pod

You can list inboxes, threads, drafts, and domains scoped to a specific Pod:

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# List all inboxes in a Pod
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inboxes = client.pods.inboxes.list(pod_id=pod.pod_id)
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# List all threads across all inboxes in a Pod
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threads = client.pods.threads.list(pod_id=pod.pod_id)
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# List all pending drafts in a Pod
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drafts = client.pods.drafts.list(pod_id=pod.pod_id)

This makes it easy to build features like “show all unread emails for Customer X” or “list all pending drafts for Customer Y.”

Deleting a Pod

You cannot delete a Pod that still has inboxes or domains attached to it. Clean up child resources first:

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# Delete all inboxes in the Pod first
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inboxes = client.pods.inboxes.list(pod_id=pod.pod_id)
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for inbox in inboxes.inboxes:
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    client.inboxes.delete(inbox.inbox_id)
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# Then delete the Pod
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client.pods.delete(pod_id=pod.pod_id)

Things to know

• Cross-pod email works normally. Inboxes in different Pods can send and receive emails from each other, just like any other email addresses. Pods isolate data access, not email delivery.
• Inboxes cannot move between Pods. If you need to reassign an inbox, create a new one in the target Pod.
• Pod-scoped API keys. You can create API keys scoped to a specific Pod, so each tenant only has access to their own resources. Create them via POST /pods/{pod_id}/api-keys.
• Inbox-scoped API keys. For even finer control, you can create keys scoped to a single inbox. These keys can only access that inbox’s threads, messages, and drafts. Create them via POST /inboxes/{inbox_id}/api-keys.
• No limit on Pods. You can create as many Pods as you need for your customers.
• Domains can be scoped to one Pod or all Pods. A domain cannot be shared across a subset of Pods.

For more details, see the Pods core concept documentation.