📧 productivity recipe
Daily Email Digest AI Routine for Gmail on Mac
Get a smart summary of your unread emails, sorted by importance.
Who it's for
People drowning in a busy inbox who want the signal pulled out before they open Gmail.
What lands in your morning
A ranked digest of overnight unread mail, the must-reply messages at the top, the newsletters and noise summarized at the bottom, ready when you sit down.
The exact prompt
Paste this into a new routine.
Summarize my unread emails from the last 24 hours across my connected Gmail accounts. Group them into "Needs a reply", "FYI", and "Can ignore". For each must-reply message, give me the sender, the ask in one line, and a suggested next step. Keep the whole thing under a page.
Schedule
Every day at 9:00 AM
cron: 0 9 * * *
Intelligence
Fast tier
Set per routine to control spend.
Required connectors
Set it up
Running in under a minute.
Step 01
Install Routines
Download the DMG, drag to Applications, and sign in with Google once.
Step 02
Connect Gmail
One-click OAuth connects one or more Gmail accounts. Tokens stay on your Mac.
Step 03
Pick the Email Digest recipe
Choose Email Digest from the library, or paste the example prompt into a new routine.
Step 04
Set the schedule
Keep the default 9:00 AM daily, or describe a different time in plain English.
Sample output
What a run looks like.
Inbox digest · 14 unread
Done- Needs a reply (3): Ana, term sheet revisions due Thu.
- FYI (5): Stripe payout sent, 2 calendar invites.
- Can ignore (6): newsletters and receipts, summarized.
Saved to your local output history · never uploaded
FAQ
Questions about this recipe.
Which email accounts does the digest cover?
Every Gmail account you connect. Routines can search them all at once or you can scope a routine to a single account.
Does Routines send my email anywhere?
Connector tokens live encrypted in local SQLite on your Mac, and the routine reads your mail directly through the running app. No BinarCode server sees your inbox.
Can the digest also reply for me?
The recipe summarizes by default. You can extend the prompt to draft replies, then approve and send them yourself from the app.
What if I get very little overnight mail?
The digest scales down. On a quiet morning it simply tells you there is nothing that needs a reply.
More productivity recipes
Morning Briefing
A single written brief waiting for you at 8 AM: today's schedule, the emails that need a reply, and the news worth knowing, in one scroll.
Calendar Prep
A weekday brief on today's meetings, each with who you're meeting, the likely agenda, and a few talking points, so you're ready before the first call.
Weekly Report
A Friday-afternoon summary of the week: what you accomplished, what moved, and what's carrying into next week, drafted from your notes and meetings.
Slack Digest
An end-of-day catch-up on the channels that matter: the decisions, the questions aimed at you, and the threads worth opening, in one summary.
Meeting Notes
An end-of-day wrap of the meetings you recorded: a clean summary, the decisions, and the action items with owners, drafted from your local transcripts.
Inbox Zero Triage
A weekday triage of your inbox that sorts each message into reply, delegate, archive, or schedule, with draft replies waiting for the ones that need a response.
Run Email Digest on your Mac.
Install Routines, paste the prompt, set the schedule. It runs locally and the output stays on your machine.
Download