Daily Inbox Triage With AI

The number of inbound inquiries I receive to my website has exponentially increased with the proliferation of AI agents. Most are irrelevant, but every once in a while there’s something interesting. I wanted a way to triage my emails, so I put Claude on the task.

I don’t want Claude accessing my primary email inbox. I pay for two users in my Google Workspace, and inquiries from my website are directed at the second user account: an entirely separate inbox.

The result is that rather than having my attention pulled every time an email comes through my website, I check it once a day, and only on the days I get a notification from Claude.

What this automation does

Claude checks my secondary email inbox every morning and classifies the inbound emails into a few different categories I’ve set up. It then drafts replies for certain types of emails and logs some in a Google Sheet (this part is specific to me, since I keep track of certain types of inquiries for my business metrics).

A recap is sent to my primary inbox, telling me if there’s anything to look at. I also have a “safety check” built in. Every Monday, Claude sends me an email — regardless of whether there are new emails or not. That way, I know the task is still running as expected, and not that something has gone haywire in the scheduled task. Otherwise, it might be an “out of sight, out of mind” situation.

Tools

• Gmail
• Notion
• Google Sheets

Want to build this yourself? Have your AI tool set up these steps.

Step 1: Set up Gmail labels (human step)

You need to set up new email labels in Gmail. A label of “Processed” will work. When your AI tool finds a new email, it will add the “Processed” label. That way, it doesn’t re-process the same email the following day if it’s still in your inbox.

Check your inbox for emails with your intake label that haven't been categorized yet. Use label combinations to exclude anything already processed.

Step 2: Set up a daily inbox check

AI checks your inbox for emails in your inbox without your label and assigns a category. The category helps the AI determine what type of response to draft.

Step 3: Draft templated replies

Fetch reply templates from a reference page and create draft responses for categories that have a match. No drafts are created for emails that fall outside the category.

Step 4: Send a daily recap

Have your AI tool email you a summary of everything processed, including what was categorized and whether drafts were created. Any items needing personal attention should be flagged at the top.