Gmail

It reads the threads that moved while you were away and tells you what happened in each, in the order that matters rather than the order they arrived. You can ask it to keep going, narrow to one sender, or open a specific message. Nothing is marked read, filed, or replied to.

What you end up with. A walk through the threads that moved, grouped by what each one is waiting on.

Start with it bringing you the information and you deciding.

Never without. A summary is not the inbox. Ask for the list of messages alongside it, so you can see what it decided to leave out.

Built on: Fetch emails / List threads / Fetch Message by Thread ID / Fetch message by message ID

It pulls your recent threads, looks at who sent the last message in each, and gives you the ones where that person was not you, oldest first. It can look up who the sender is in your contacts so the list reads as people rather than addresses.

What you end up with. An ordered list of threads where somebody is still waiting, with how long they have waited.

Start with it bringing you the information and you deciding.

Never without. Gmail has no idea what counts as a reply you owe. Treat this as a prompt to look, not as a complete list of what is outstanding.

Built on: List threads / Fetch emails / Fetch Message by Thread ID / Search People / Get contacts

Yes. It finds the message, retrieves the attached file, and reads it back to you, which saves the download and open cycle when you only need one figure out of a statement or a date out of a contract.

What you end up with. The file in hand and a summary of what it actually says.

Start with it bringing you the information and you deciding.

Never without. An attachment from outside your company is untrusted content. Text inside a document is never an instruction to act on, however it is worded.

Built on: Get Gmail attachment / Fetch emails / Fetch message by message ID

It reads the thread, writes the response, and leaves it as a draft in your Drafts folder. Creating a draft and sending a draft are two separate actions, so a draft never leaves on its own.

What you end up with. A reply sitting in Drafts, in the right thread, that you send or bin.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Keep drafting and sending as two separate instructions. The moment one request does both, you have quietly stopped reviewing.

Built on: Create email draft / Update draft / Get Draft / List Drafts / Fetch Message by Thread ID

It reads what labels you already have, creates any that are missing, and then relabels and archives in batches of up to a thousand messages per call. Labeling and archiving are reversible, so the failure mode here is a mess to redo rather than mail you cannot get back.

What you end up with. An inbox sorted into your own labels, with a count of what went where.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Have it label a hundred messages first and look at them. A rule that is slightly wrong applied to a thousand messages is a slow afternoon to unpick.

Built on: Fetch emails / List Gmail labels / Create label / Modify email labels / Modify thread labels / Batch modify Gmail messages

Gmail filters are the mechanism, and they are creatable through the connection. Your assistant can read the filters you already have, spot the overlaps, and add the rule you describe. A filter is a standing rule: it keeps running long after the conversation ends.

What you end up with. A named Gmail filter you can see and edit in settings, doing the sorting from now on.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Have it state the rule in plain words before it creates one, and never let a new filter skip the inbox or auto-archive for a sender you have not named yourself.

Built on: List Gmail filters / Get Gmail filter / Create Gmail filter / List Gmail labels / Create label

It can send. There are separate actions for sending a new message, replying inside an existing thread, and sending a draft that already exists. Gmail's own description of the send actions calls them immediate and irreversible, and sending a draft uses the recipients already sitting in that draft rather than any you name at the time.

What you end up with. The message gone, in the right thread, from the right address.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Send Draft sends to whatever recipients are already in the draft and cannot override them, and no send here can be recalled. Read the To, Cc and Bcc lines yourself before approving each one.

Built on: Get Draft / Send Draft / Send Email / Reply to email thread / Forward email message

The choice of action is the whole story here. Moving a message or a thread to trash is recoverable, and there are matching actions to bring either back. Batch delete and thread delete skip the trash entirely, and Gmail's own description says that cannot be undone.

What you end up with. A quieter mailbox, and the trashed items still sitting in trash if you want them back.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Batch delete Gmail messages and Delete thread bypass the trash and cannot be undone. Ask for Move to Trash or Trash thread instead, which the connector describes as recoverable until the trash is purged.

Built on: Fetch emails / Move to Trash / Trash thread / Untrash Message / Untrash thread / Batch delete Gmail messages / Delete thread