Triage your email with Claude: a method and five real examples

Short answer: to triage email with Claude, connect it to your mailboxes and ask for precise results: what arrived, what waits for a reply, what a PDF says, a draft of a reply. The method is four steps: catch up, sort, read in depth, prepare. You keep control of sending. Below are the method and five concrete cases (invoices, taxes, school, quotes, several mailboxes), with prompts to copy.

The method in four steps

1. Catch up. Ask for everything that arrived since yesterday, across all mailboxes, with what has not been answered. Tool: list_recent, which lists recent messages in one list (unread by default), plus Google Chat and Telegram with a replied-after flag.
2. Sort. Ask Claude to rank by urgency: deadline, money, person. Tool: search_messages, which searches one mailbox or all of them by text, sender, date range or unread.
3. Read in depth. For what needs a decision, have Claude read the whole thread or the attachment. Tools: get_thread (the conversation oldest first, quoted text removed, 20 messages at most) and get_attachment (PDF, Word, text, images).
4. Prepare. Have the reply written as a draft, then review and send it yourself (or switch on direct sending for a mailbox). Tools: reply_draft, create_draft, forward_draft.

Two useful guarantees: reading does not mark anything as read, and by default everything written stays a draft in the right mailbox.

Case 1: invoices and bookkeeping

"Find the invoices I received this month in all my mailboxes, open the PDF attachments and give me a table: supplier, date, total including tax."

For a freelancer or a small business, this saves the most time at month end. Claude searches, opens the PDFs with get_attachment and returns a table to paste into your spreadsheet. Limit: a scanned PDF without text cannot be read, and Claude says so.

Case 2: taxes and paperwork

"Search the emails from the tax office and health insurance from the last three months and list the deadlines, with the date and the document to provide."

Administrative emails hide dates in PDFs. Claude reads them when they contain text and returns a list of deadlines. Always check the date on the original document before acting: Claude reads, you commit.

Case 3: school and family

"What did I miss from the school and the parents' group this week? Only what needs a reply from me."

School emails, Telegram groups, Google Chat: list_recent_telegram and list_recent_chat show whether you have already replied. Telegram and Google Chat stay read-only: Claude never answers in your place.

Case 4: quotes and clients

"Which quotes did I send more than five days ago with no answer? Prepare a short, friendly follow-up for each, as a draft."

Claude finds the unanswered quotes, then prepares follow-ups with reply_draft in the mailbox the quote left from, with that address as the sender. You review, adjust the tone and send.

Case 5: several mailboxes, personal and work

"Search all my mailboxes for today's unread emails and tell me which mailbox each one is in."

With Fezola, every result carries its account (accountLabel, accountEmail). You see at a glance what lands in your personal Gmail, your work mailbox at OVH or IONOS, or your iCloud, and drafts leave from the right address.

Honest limits

• Drafts by default. That is deliberate: a sent email cannot be taken back, so sending is something you switch on per mailbox.
• No scanned PDFs without text, and no unsupported formats (spreadsheets, archives).
• Length. A very long email is truncated beyond 20,000 characters and a document beyond 50,000: ask for the part you need.
• Email is untrusted input. A message can contain instructions aimed at the model: review what Claude proposes before sending.

Get started

Create a free Fezola account, add your mailboxes in Sources, then add Fezola to Claude: Customize, Connectors, + Add, Add custom connector, paste https://api.fezola.com/mcp (every menu). In ChatGPT, custom MCP servers are available on Business and Enterprise/Edu plans (Pro read-only): how to.

For more prompts, see 12 prompts to triage all your inboxes. To connect several providers, read the guide all your inboxes and chats in Claude, and for safety, is it safe to connect your email to an AI?. New to the topic? What is an email MCP server.