# Email Chief of Staff — Pencel.ai > A Program that triages your Gmail on a schedule, tells you what actually needs you, and writes the replies. Every draft is held for your approval before it sends. Canonical: https://pencel.ai/use-cases/email-chief-of-staff [Use cases](https://pencel.ai/use-cases) Email Chief of Staff Built-in Program — install in one click # Email Chief of Staff #mailroom Reviews your Gmail inbox on a schedule, clears what doesn’t need you with a reason, and holds a drafted reply for everything that does — sending nothing until you say so. The crew **Mailroom** triages what needs you; holds drafts for your review Download Free [Install Email Chief of Staff](https://pencel.ai/download) 41 → 3 Messages reviewed overnight, surfaced as actually needing you Every one Cleared message comes with the reason it was cleared Emails sent before you read the draft and said go See it happen ## What it looks like with this running. Tuesday · 6:10 AM #mailroom Room Results Knowledge **Mailroom** 6:10 AM Overnight review done — 41 messages since yesterday. 3 need you, 12 cleared as read, 26 were newsletters or duplicates. Needs you · 3 Two people waiting on a reply, and one decision on the Northwind kickoff. 3 need you 12 cleared 26 noise Every cleared thread is listed below with a one-line reason. **Mailroom** 6:11 AM Draft ready for the most time-sensitive one. Reply to Acme — renewal pricing They asked for the Q4 rate by Thursday. This draft uses the pricing rule you saved last month. Nothing goes out until you send it. Review & send Edit draft **Mailroom** 6:12 AM And one decision, not a reply: Northwind wants to move kickoff to the 22nd Your calendar shows a conflict with the board-prep block. Approve the move, or I’ll draft a counter-proposal. Approve move Counter-propose Message #mailroom — “@” to point at a file or teammate What you just saw **Reviews overnight, explains what it cleared** Every message is accounted for. Noise is cleared with a reason, never silently. **Drafts, never sends** Replies are held in the room until you send them yourself. **Surfaces decisions, not just mail** Real commitments and people waiting on you rank above promotional urgency. End to end ## The whole loop, start to finish. Every step below runs today. Nothing here is a mock-up of what is coming. - 1 Review Overnight, every message since the last pass — read or unread — latest message per thread, repeats de-duplicated. - 2 Triage Each one sorted honestly: needs you, reply needed, decision, already resolved, duplicate, worth knowing, promotional, routine. - 3 Draft A safe reply for anything that needs one, following the standing rules you’ve saved. - 4 You send Review, edit, send. It re-reads the thread right before sending so nothing crosses a message that just arrived. - 5 Learn Say “remember…” and the rule sticks for next time. Save any fact from a result with its source. Capabilities ## Everything it does, named. One line each. No adjectives — every one is a specific thing you can go and watch it do. - Reviews your inbox overnight or on the cadence you set, covering every message since the last pass — up to 200, or a full 500 on request — reading the latest message in each thread and de-duplicating repeats. - Sorts every message into one of nine honest buckets — needs you, reply needed, decision or action, already resolved, already answered, duplicate, worth knowing, promotional, routine — each with a one-line reason. - Ranks by commitment rather than volume, so concrete promises and people waiting on you beat promotional urgency and two newsletters never outrank one customer. - Drafts a reply in your voice for every thread that needs one, following the standing rules you have saved for pricing, tone and priority, and holds it in the room rather than sending it. - Re-reads the thread immediately before sending and reports a delivery receipt or a proven no-send, never “probably sent”. - Turns a decision buried in a thread — move the kickoff, approve the rate — into a card with options, in the room and on Home. - Marks instructions found inside an email as untrusted, never follows them, and surfaces them to you instead. - Keeps standing rules scoped to #mailroom and puts one-tap handling on every card: mark read, defer, or save a fact with its source. Inputs and outputs ## What it reads, and what you get back. What it connects to Gmail via Google Workspace (one-click sign-in) Your standing rules Saved room knowledge Slack — for a drafted reply, when you ask What lands in your hands - A morning digest — what needs you, what was cleared, and why - Drafted replies, held for your review - Decisions surfaced as cards, not buried in threads - The same cards on Home, alongside your other Programs A week with it running ## Day one to steady state. What the first day looks like, what the quiet days look like, and when it comes to find you. - Day 1 Connect Gmail with one click. Pencel verifies read access, then reviews your 20 most recent unread while you watch. - Every morning Overnight review of everything since last time — up to 200 messages; a full pass of up to 500 when you ask for one. - When it needs you A few cards: the replies it drafted and the decisions it found, held in the room. - When you send You review, edit, and send. It re-reads the thread right before sending so nothing crosses a message that just arrived. Guardrails ## Where it stops for you. The line between what it does on its own and what it will never do without you, stated plainly. Waits for you Sending any reply, and every decision. A draft never leaves the room until you send it. Never does Send, archive, or change anything in your mailbox on its own. Gmail is what it watches. Ask it for a Slack reply and it’ll draft that too. [Install Email Chief of Staff](https://pencel.ai/download) [Previous RFP Operations](https://pencel.ai/use-cases/rfp-operations) [Next Accounting](https://pencel.ai/use-cases/accounting) Get started ## Three steps to your first real result. - 1 Download Pencel and connect your Google account. Read access is enough to begin. - 2 Install Email Chief of Staff and set the review cadence you want. - 3 Run the first review yourself, then read the drafts it held back for you. Download Free macOS, Windows and Linux. No invite code. [Read the docs first →](https://pencel.ai/docs/getting-started/what-is-pencel.html)