📧 Productivity recipe
Daily Email Digest AI Routine for Gmail on Mac
Get a daily email digest of everything unread, sorted by importance, with replies suggested for you.
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.
Set the schedule. Keep the default 9:00 AM daily, or describe a different time in plain English. cron: 0 9 * * *
Set it up
Step 02Connect Gmail
One-click OAuth connects one or more Gmail accounts. Tokens stay on your Mac.
Step 03Pick the Email Digest recipe
Choose Email Digest from the library, or paste the example prompt into a new routine.
Sample output
What a run looks like.
Saved to your local output history · stays on your Mac
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.
- 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.
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, with no BinarCode server in that path. Summarizing it takes a model, so the text of those emails goes to the AI: through Routines AI, which stores neither the prompt nor the answer, or straight to your provider on your own key.
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.
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Run Email Digest on your Mac.
Install Routines, paste the prompt, set the schedule. It runs locally and the output stays on your machine.
Step 01 · Install Routines. Download the DMG, drag to Applications, and sign in with Google once.