Email MFA

Anchor supports one-time password (OTP) as its email MFA method. Each identity is assigned a dedicated mailbox — simply configure a forwarding rule with your email provider to route OTP codes to Anchor during identity creation, reauthentication, and agent sessions.

Step 1: Add Email MFA as an authentication method

Go to the Identities page and select your identity.
Choose Preset authentication — the available authentication flows will appear below.
Click the Add flow button to create a new authentication flow.
Enter a name for the flow and click Add.
Select the Email MFA checkbox under Authentication Methods. Include any other authentication methods needed for this login flow.
Click Save Changes in the top-right corner.

Step 2: Create an identity that uses the Email MFA authentication method

After creating the Email MFA authentication method:

Create a new identity.
In the credentials window, choose the Email MFA authentication method.
You will receive a dedicated mailbox (for example, zesty-vale7820@mfa.anchorbrowser.io).
Set up a forwarding rule from your mailbox to your dedicated mailbox.
Optionally, test the forwarding flow using the detailed instructions.

Forwarding setup details

Official help for forwarding in common mail clients:

API Reference

Use the mailbox and identity email APIs to provision an inbox, attach it to an identity, verify forwarding, and read OTP emails programmatically. All endpoints require the anchor-api-key header.

Typical flow

Create an authentication flow that includes email_mfa in methods.
Create a mailbox to get a dedicated forwarding address.
Create an identity and pass the mailbox id as mailboxId, plus authOptionId for the flow you created.
Send a probe email to verify delivery.
List or read emails to retrieve OTP codes.

Show Endpoints

Method	Path	Description
`POST`	`/v1/mailboxes`	Create a detached mailbox before identity creation
`GET`	`/v1/mailboxes/{mailboxId}/emails`	List emails received by a mailbox
`POST`	`/v1/mailboxes/{mailboxId}/send-probe`	Send a test email to verify forwarding
`POST`	`/v1/identities/{identityId}/email`	Enable or return the identity’s mailbox
`GET`	`/v1/identities/{identityId}/email`	Get the identity’s mailbox details
`DELETE`	`/v1/identities/{identityId}/email`	Detach and delete the identity’s mailbox
`GET`	`/v1/identities/{identityId}/email/emails`	List emails in the identity’s mailbox
`GET`	`/v1/identities/{identityId}/email/emails/{emailId}`	Get full email content (text and HTML)

Example: provision mailbox and create identity

import { client, Applications, Identities } from 'anchorbrowser';

// 1. Create an auth flow with Email MFA
const authFlow = await Applications.createAuthFlow({
  path: { applicationId },
  body: {
    name: 'Login with Email MFA',
    methods: ['username_password', 'email_mfa'],
  },
});

// 2. Create a detached mailbox
const { data: mailbox } = await client.post({ url: '/v1/mailboxes', body: {} });
console.log('Forwarding address:', mailbox.address);

// 3. Create the identity and attach the mailbox
const identity = await Identities.createIdentity({
  body: {
    name: 'Work Account',
    source: 'https://example.com/login',
    authOptionId: authFlow.id,
    mailboxId: mailbox.id,
    credentials: [
      { type: 'username_password', username: 'user@example.com', password: 'secret' },
    ],
  },
});

import os
from anchorbrowser import Anchorbrowser

anchor_client = Anchorbrowser(api_key=os.getenv("ANCHOR_API_KEY"))

auth_flow = anchor_client.applications.create_auth_flow(
    application_id=application_id,
    name="Login with Email MFA",
    methods=["username_password", "email_mfa"],
)

mailbox = anchor_client.post("/v1/mailboxes", body={}, cast_to=object)
print("Forwarding address:", mailbox["address"])

identity = anchor_client.identities.create_identity(
    name="Work Account",
    source="https://example.com/login",
    credentials=[
        {"type": "username_password", "username": "user@example.com", "password": "secret"},
    ],
    extra_body={"authOptionId": str(auth_flow.id), "mailboxId": mailbox["id"]},
)

Example: test forwarding and read OTP emails

After setting up your email forwarding rule, send a probe to confirm delivery, then poll for incoming messages. Use the since query parameter to fetch only emails received after a given ISO timestamp.

const identityId = 'IDENTITY_ID';
const mailboxId = 'MAILBOX_ID';

// Send a probe email to verify forwarding
await client.post({ url: `/v1/mailboxes/${mailboxId}/send-probe`, body: {} });

// List recent emails for the identity
const since = new Date(Date.now() - 5 * 60 * 1000).toISOString();
const { data: emails } = await client.get({
  url: `/v1/identities/${identityId}/email/emails`,
  query: { since },
});

// Read full content of the newest email
if (emails.length > 0) {
  const { data: email } = await client.get({
    url: `/v1/identities/${identityId}/email/emails/${emails[0].id}`,
  });
  console.log(email.subject, email.body_text);
}

import os
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
from anchorbrowser import Anchorbrowser

anchor_client = Anchorbrowser(api_key=os.getenv('ANCHOR_API_KEY'))
identity_id = 'IDENTITY_ID'
mailbox_id = 'MAILBOX_ID'

anchor_client.post(f'/v1/mailboxes/{mailbox_id}/send-probe', body={}, cast_to=object)

since = (datetime.now(timezone.utc) - timedelta(minutes=5)).isoformat()
emails = anchor_client.get(
    f'/v1/identities/{identity_id}/email/emails',
    query={'since': since},
    cast_to=object,
)

if emails:
    email = anchor_client.get(
        f'/v1/identities/{identity_id}/email/emails/{emails[0]["id"]}',
        cast_to=object,
    )
    print(email['subject'], email['body_text'])

During identity creation and agent sessions, Anchor automatically reads OTP codes from the mailbox. Use the list and get email endpoints when you need to handle codes in your own integration.

Create Mailbox

Provision a dedicated forwarding address

Enable Identity Mailbox

Attach a mailbox to an existing identity

List Identity Emails

Poll for forwarded OTP emails

Send Mailbox Probe

Verify forwarding is working

Introduction

Platform

Integrations

Account

Step 1: Add Email MFA as an authentication method

Step 2: Create an identity that uses the Email MFA authentication method

Forwarding setup details

API Reference

Typical flow

Example: provision mailbox and create identity

Example: test forwarding and read OTP emails

Create Mailbox

Enable Identity Mailbox

List Identity Emails

Send Mailbox Probe

​Step 1: Add Email MFA as an authentication method

​Step 2: Create an identity that uses the Email MFA authentication method

​Forwarding setup details

​API Reference

​Typical flow

​Example: provision mailbox and create identity

​Example: test forwarding and read OTP emails

​Related API docs

Create Mailbox

Enable Identity Mailbox

List Identity Emails

Send Mailbox Probe

Step 1: Add Email MFA as an authentication method

Step 2: Create an identity that uses the Email MFA authentication method

Forwarding setup details

API Reference

Typical flow

Example: provision mailbox and create identity

Example: test forwarding and read OTP emails

Related API docs