Bring Your Own LLM: Endpoint Access and Fallback

Bring Your Own LLM lets you configure an OpenAI-compatible base URL, model name and API key for classification. Model choice does not change where the application itself runs.

Configure and test the endpoint

Use the provider’s documented base URL and exact model identifier. The application appends /chat/completions to that base URL. Test the connection in Settings with a synthetic input before introducing mailbox data.

Local Ollama exposes an API such as http://localhost:11434/v1. That address works only from a process that can reach the same loopback interface. The hosted service cannot reach your laptop’s localhost, and the current production URL guard rejects private and loopback addresses in custom endpoint settings. Do not expose an unauthenticated model server as a workaround.

Check fallback as well as the selected model

The current code can attach the configured default model provider as a fallback for a custom endpoint. A failed custom request can therefore be attempted elsewhere. Selecting a model is not proof of exclusive use of that model.

For a requirement of local-only processing, verify the application deployment, chosen model, complete provider chain and observed outbound requests—including a synthetic outage test. A local endpoint can also serve Ollama cloud models, so check the actual model rather than relying on its URL.

Review category quality after model changes

The per-message classifier uses sender, subject and a limited body preview. It chooses one category or none. Preview matching, excluded and ambiguous examples after changing models; this page does not provide measured accuracy rankings for providers.

See the Ollama guide, private sorting and sender categories.