Automate Your Email Management: Triage, Replies and Follow-Up

Three different problems in one inbox#

“I spend too much time on email” actually covers three distinct problems, which call for three different agents.

1. Triage: important messages are mixed in with notifications, newsletters, invoices and sales pitches. You have to open everything to know what to deal with.
2. Replies: a good share of emails call for a predictable answer (availability, a price, a document, a confirmation). Writing them one by one takes time.
3. Follow-up: some exchanges are left hanging, on your side or the other person's, and nobody remembers until it's too late.

You can handle all three with a single agent, but it's often clearer to start with the one that costs you the most, then add the others.

Agent 1: Triage the inbox every morning#

What it does#

The Inbox triage template reads the emails received since the day before, every weekday at 7 a.m. It applies labels (To do, To read, Invoices, Newsletters), archives automated notifications and sends you a summary of the five emails that need a reply today.

So you open your mailbox to an inbox that's already tidy and a short list of priorities, instead of fifty unread messages.

Defining the triage rules#

Useful triage relies on your own categories. Here's a starting point you can adapt:

Two safety principles are worth writing into the agent's design: it never deletes anything (it archives, which is reversible) and when in doubt, it leaves the message in the inbox.

Going further with attachments#

Invoices received by email are a typical case. The Incoming invoice filing template automatically files each invoice in a folder, with a standardized file name. Your accountant or accounting software just has to pick them up.

Agent 2: Draft the replies#

Drafts, not sends#

A well-designed reply agent prepares drafts in your mailbox, which you review and send. That's how the Prepared replies template works: twice a day on weekdays, at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., it spots emails awaiting a reply and creates a draft in each thread.

Why not send directly? Because a reply commits your company. A draft saves you most of the time (the writing) while leaving you in control (the sending). For tightly defined cases, such as confirming receipt of a file, you can allow direct sending later.

Giving the agent what it needs to answer correctly#

A draft is only useful if it's accurate. For that, the agent needs your reference information:

• Your prices and terms (a price list, a PDF of your terms and conditions).
• Your standard answers to frequently asked questions.
• Your availability, by connecting your calendar.
• Your style: a few emails you've written, so it picks up your tone and sign-off.

You can add these documents as the agent's context files by dropping them on its card in the dashboard. They're indexed and consulted on every run. The agent must never invent a price or lead time that isn't in these documents: if it doesn't know, the draft flags it in square brackets.

Sample brief#

Twice a day on weekdays, at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., find the emails from clients and prospects in my Gmail that are waiting for a reply. For each one, create a reply draft in the thread. Use my attached price list and FAQ, and my Google Calendar to suggest time slots. Professional and warm tone, signed “Claire Duval, Duval Studio.” If you're missing any information, leave a placeholder in square brackets instead of making it up. Never send anything yourself.

Agent 3: Track what's still unanswered#

The problem of forgotten threads#

You send a proposal, a question, a request for a document. No reply. A week later, you've forgotten about it. That's not negligence: it's the natural consequence of an inbox that only shows what arrives, never what doesn't.

The Unanswered emails template does the opposite. Every weekday morning at 8:30 a.m., it reviews the pending conversations in your Outlook (or Gmail) and shows you:

• important emails received that nobody has answered;
• emails you sent that haven't had a reply after a set delay, with a follow-up ready to go.

Turning requests into tasks#

Many emails contain a request that a reply alone won't settle: send a document, make a call, prepare a quote. The Emails to tasks template spots them and creates a task in Todoist (or Asana, Trello, Notion) with a link to the original email. Your task list becomes the only place you need to check.

Scenario: a day at an agency with all three agents#

A six-person communications agency shares a “contact@” address. Every day, dozens of emails land there: quote requests, unsolicited applications, supplier invoices, sales pitches, exchanges with existing clients.

7 a.m. The triage agent labels every message. Applications go to a dedicated label, invoices to “Invoices,” sales pitches are set aside. The morning summary lists the quote requests and client messages.

8 a.m. The reply agent prepares a draft for each quote request: a thank-you, two questions to scope the need, three call slots taken from the shared calendar. The account manager reviews, tweaks a sentence, sends.

8:30 a.m. The follow-up agent flags that a client hasn't replied for nine days about approving a mockup. It suggests a follow-up, which the account manager sends after a light edit.

2 p.m. The reply agent runs again on the emails that came in during the morning.

Nobody was replaced. The shared inbox simply became readable.

Gmail or Outlook, and the privacy question#

The agents work with Gmail (including Google Workspace) and Outlook (including Microsoft 365). Connecting takes one click, with Google's or Microsoft's usual authorization screen. You can revoke it at any time from your account or from the connectors page.

A few good practices:

• Limit the scope: a triage agent doesn't need to read your personal emails if you have a dedicated work address.
• Exclude sensitive topics: you can ask the agent to ignore certain senders or labels (HR, legal).
• Keep control of sending until you're fully satisfied with the drafts.

A gradual rollout over one week#

There's no need to launch everything on the same day. Here's a progression that leaves time to check each step:

1. Day 1: triage only. Launch the triage agent with your labels. The next morning, look through the archived messages and the labels applied. If an important email was filed under “Newsletters,” tell the agent: it remembers the correction.
2. Days 2 and 3: adjust the rules. Add the senders that should always stay in “To do” (your main clients, your bank, your accountant) and those to always archive.
3. Day 4: drafts. Upload your reference documents, then launch the reply agent. Compare its drafts with what you would have written.
4. Day 5: follow-up. Add the agent that spots unanswered conversations.
5. The following week: take stock. Look at each agent's run log in your dashboard and decide what can be given more autonomy.

This progression avoids the “black box” effect: at every step, you know what each agent does and why.

Recap: where to start#

These agents are among the simplest to set up: their monthly price is generally at the low end of the scale, from €3 for a simple daily summary. The Pro plan includes five agents up to €9, which often covers an entire email setup. Details on the pricing page.

If some of your emails come from clients with service questions, also read our article on customer service with an AI agent. And for follow-ups on your quotes and invoices, a dedicated agent is a better fit: see automated follow-ups for quotes and invoices.