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Claude for Operators

Email Inbox Triage

Last verified: 14 February 2026 | Applies to: Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise (requires Gmail/Outlook connector)

In 30 seconds

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Most operators start their day buried in email. Claude connects to your inbox via MCP, reads your unread messages, and gives you a prioritised briefing — what needs a response now, what can wait, and what you can safely ignore. It drafts replies for the routine ones so you can clear your inbox in minutes instead of the usual hour, letting you spend your attention on the messages that actually matter.

What it does

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With your inbox connected, Claude can:

  • Read and categorise unread emails — by urgency, topic, sender, or whatever taxonomy you define
  • Prioritise your attention — surface the three to five messages that actually need you today
  • Draft responses — for routine messages, client follow-ups, and internal requests
  • Summarise threads — condense long email chains into a paragraph so you can catch up without reading twenty messages
  • Flag patterns — recurring requests, customers who email frequently, or topics that keep coming up

Claude reads your messages in the context of the conversation. It doesn’t just look at the latest reply — it understands the full thread.

How to set it up

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Step 1: Connect your email

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Gmail: Go to Settings → Connectors in Claude Desktop, search for Gmail, and authenticate via OAuth. Grant both read and send permissions if you want Claude to draft replies you can send directly.

Outlook: Outlook requires a custom MCP connector. Go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector and enter the Outlook MCP server URL. Check the connectors guide for setup details.

Step 2: Seed your triage preferences

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Tell Claude how you think about your inbox:

My email triage rules:
- URGENT: anything from my CEO (Alex Chen), board members, or with "urgent" in the subject. Also anything from our top 5 clients: Acme Corp, Meridian Group, Baxter Industries, TechPrime, Solaris.
- ACTION NEEDED: requests that need a response from me today — approvals, decisions, scheduling.
- FYI: internal updates, newsletters, team announcements — I should know about these but they don't need a reply.
- LOW PRIORITY: vendor outreach, marketing emails, automated notifications.


I typically handle email twice a day: 8am and 2pm. Draft responses for anything in the ACTION NEEDED category. Keep drafts under 100 words unless the situation calls for more.

If you have workplace memory set up, this persists across sessions. Otherwise, keep this in a text file you can paste at the start of each triage session.

Step 3: Run your first triage

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Read my unread emails from the last 24 hours. Categorise each one using my triage rules. For each email, give me: sender, subject, category, and a one-line summary. List URGENT first, then ACTION NEEDED, then FYI, then LOW PRIORITY.

Claude returns a structured briefing. Scan it in 30 seconds — you now know what needs your attention without opening a single email.

How operators actually use it

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The morning briefing

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This is the core workflow. Run it first thing each day:

Morning inbox triage. Read all unread emails since 5pm yesterday. Categorise using my rules and give me the briefing. For anything in ACTION NEEDED, draft a response. For URGENT items, just flag them — I'll handle those personally.

Claude returns something like:

URGENT (2)

  • Alex Chen — re: Board deck timeline — wants final version by Thursday, asks if finance numbers are confirmed
  • Sarah at Acme Corp — re: Contract renewal — escalating a pricing concern, references last week’s call

ACTION NEEDED (5)

  • Marcus (finance) — Needs your approval on the Q1 marketing budget reforecast. Draft ready.
  • Priya (marketing) — Asking which case studies to feature at the trade show. Draft ready.
  • Tom (IT) — CRM migration timeline question — wants to know if March 15 still holds. Draft ready.
  • New lead via website — Demo request from a 200-person consulting firm. Draft ready.
  • Building management — Lease renewal paperwork due by Feb 28. Draft ready.

FYI (4)

  • Weekly sales report from Jake — pipeline summary attached
  • HR — New starter orientation next Tuesday
  • Slack digest — 12 unread mentions (summary: mostly project updates)
  • Industry newsletter — article on new procurement regulations

LOW PRIORITY (7)

  • 4 vendor outreach emails, 2 newsletter subscriptions, 1 webinar invitation

Review the drafts, edit what needs adjusting, and send. The five ACTION NEEDED replies that would have taken 25 minutes to write are done in five.

Thread catch-up

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When you’ve been away or a thread has grown long:

Summarise the email thread with Acme Corp about the contract renewal. Who said what, what's been agreed, what's still outstanding, and what do they need from me?

Claude reads the full thread — not just the last message — and gives you a structured summary. Particularly useful after holidays or when you’re pulled into a thread that’s been going for days without you.

End-of-day sweep

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Show me any emails from today that I haven't responded to yet. Exclude newsletters and automated notifications. For each one, tell me: is this actually urgent, or can it wait until tomorrow?

This catches anything that slipped through the morning triage.

Weekly email analytics

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Analyse my email activity for the past week. Tell me:
- How many emails I received and sent
- Who emails me most frequently
- What topics come up repeatedly
- Any patterns — requests that could be handled by someone else, recurring questions that should be in a FAQ, or emails I consistently don't respond to

This surfaces operational insights. If you’re getting the same question from clients every week, that’s a documentation gap. If you’re spending 30% of your email time on one vendor, that’s a relationship to delegate.

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