How to manage your email in ChatGPT

What you need

• A mailbox that allows it. On InboxFamily, every grown-up's mailbox can be connected. Children's mailboxes never can.
• ChatGPT, or another AI assistant that supports connections to other apps.
• Your email address and password, for one sign-in.

Connect it, step by step

1. In ChatGPT, open Settings and find the section for apps and connections. The name of that menu changes from time to time, so look for the word "connect" if it has moved.
2. Add InboxFamily there.
3. A sign-in page from InboxFamily opens. Type your email address and password. It is our page, not ChatGPT's, so ChatGPT never sees your password.
4. Approve the access. You land back in ChatGPT, ready to ask.

That is the only sign-in. From then on, a question about your mail is enough. Other assistants work the same way: add the connection, sign in on our page, ask.

What to ask

Talk to it the way you would ask someone sitting next to you. The more specific you are about who sent it and when, the better the answer.

Before it moves a lot of mail at once, ask it to show you what it found first. "List the newsletters you would archive" takes a second and saves a surprise.

What it can do, and what it can't

• It can find messages, read and summarize them, move them to folders, archive them, mark them as read, flagged or spam, and save a draft reply.
• It can't send an email, and it can't delete one for good.

The second line is not a promise ChatGPT makes. It is a rule on our side: if an assistant asked to send or delete, InboxFamily would say no. That matters because an email can contain text written to fool an assistant, and the guide on AI and your inbox explains why those two actions are the ones worth closing. We may add them later if families ask for them.

Drafts are the part you'll use most

When you ask for a reply, the draft lands in your Drafts folder, the same one you see in webmail and in the mail app on your phone. Open it, change a word or two, and send it yourself. Nothing leaves your mailbox until you do.

Who sees your mail

When ChatGPT reads a message for you, the text of that message goes to OpenAI, the company that runs ChatGPT, and is handled under their terms. It is the same as copying the message into the chat yourself. A simple rule: if you would not paste it into ChatGPT, don't ask ChatGPT to read it.

In a family, each person decides for their own mailbox. The family admin can see which mailboxes have an assistant connected, and children's mailboxes can never be connected.

Turning it off

Open Settings in webmail, find Assistants, and choose Disconnect. It stops working right away. You can also remove the connection from ChatGPT's own settings. Everything the assistant did stays as it is: archived mail stays archived, and you can move it back whenever you like.

Read next

• 25 things to ask your AI about your family inbox, from school dates to the newsletter pile.
• Is it safe to let an AI read your email? What it sees, what it can never do, and the email written to trick it.
• What is MCP? The idea behind assistant connections, in plain English.
• MCP email: what an assistant can do in an inbox, and what is risky.
• Managing mailboxes from chat, for the person who runs the family's domain.
• Everything InboxFamily does, in one list, and answers to common questions on the help page.