Everyday use

Talk to your assistant in plain language. Name the mailbox when you have more than one.

Examples

You say	What happens
"Which mailboxes do I have?"	Lists your mailboxes and whether each can log in.
"Summarize today's mail in my work inbox."	Lists the newest messages and summarizes them.
"Find Dana's message about the invoice from last week."	Searches by sender, subject, text and date.
"In my Gmail, find unread mail from Dana with attachments."	Uses Gmail's own search, the same as the search box in Gmail.
"Show me that message."	Opens the whole message. It stays unread in your mail app.
"Draft a reply saying I agree, and save it."	Saves a draft. Nothing is sent.
"Change the draft: add Lee in Cc."	Replaces the draft with the new version.
"Send it."	Sends the message. Sending cannot be undone.
"Write it as a formatted email, with a short list and a link."	Sends formatted mail, with a plain-text copy for mail programs that show only text.
"Send the report in ~/Documents/q3.pdf to Lee."	Sends the message with that file attached.
"Save the invoice attached to Dana's message in ~/Downloads."	Saves the attachment there. It is never opened.
"Delete the newsletter from this morning."	Deletes that message permanently.
"Report a problem with email-tool: search never finishes."	Shows you a report for the maintainer, with nothing private in it. Nothing is sent until you choose how. See Report a problem.

In Claude Code, the plugin also adds three commands: /inbox, /email-search and /email-send.

What the assistant can do

Tool	What it does
list_mailboxes	Lists your mailboxes and whether each can log in
list_folders	Lists the folders in a mailbox
list_emails	Lists the newest messages in a folder
search_emails	Searches by sender, subject, text, date, or a Gmail search
get_email	Opens one message in full, with its attachments listed
save_attachment	Saves one attachment into a folder you name
create_draft, list_drafts, get_draft, update_draft	Works with drafts
send_email	Sends a message, plain or formatted, with any attachments
add_mailbox	Opens a page in your browser to add a mailbox
delete_email	Deletes a message permanently
report_problem	Builds a problem report for the maintainer, with nothing private in it; sends nothing
email_problem_report	Emails that report to the maintainer from one of your mailboxes, after you approve the exact text

A reply the assistant drafts or sends joins the conversation it answers, in Gmail, Outlook and any other mail program.

Approve before sending

When your organization turns on approval, your app asks you before email-tool sends, deletes or replaces a draft. The question shows the real recipients, the subject and the whole message. Select Accept to go ahead or Decline to stop. The assistant cannot answer for you.

Attachments

The assistant can attach any file you ask for, from any folder, up to 25 MB per message.

If a file looks sensitive, your app asks you before anything is sent and says why, for example "id_ed25519 looks sensitive: it is an SSH private key". Files that look sensitive include private keys, .env files, cloud credentials, password databases, files in folders such as .ssh or .aws, and files with CUI markings. Select Accept to send them anyway; the decision is yours.

If your app cannot show that question, the assistant tells you which files it found and sends them only after you confirm in the conversation. The confirmation works once, for those files and recipients, within ten minutes. A draft with such a file is saved, with the same warning.

Saved attachments go into the folder you name ("Downloads" means the Downloads folder in your home folder), get a safe file name, and never replace an existing file. Saving into a place where a file can run on its own (for example a startup folder or .ssh), or saving a program, asks you first in the same way.

Your mail and the assistant

Messages you ask about are shown to the AI assistant during the conversation. Treat them as you treat anything else you share with that assistant.