I Built an App That Reads My Emails So I Don't Have To

I've been drowning in email for years. Hundreds of messages a day across multiple accounts. Most of it noise. Some of it important. All of it demanding attention I don't have.

So I built something to fix it.

MailToMessage is a macOS menu bar app that uses AI to read your emails and text you the highlights. That's it. No inbox zero methodology. No productivity system. Just the information you actually need, delivered where you'll actually see it.

How it works

The app lives in your menu bar. Completely invisible until you need it.

At times you choose (morning, lunch, end of day—whatever works), it:

1. Fetches your recent emails from Apple Mail
2. Runs them through an AI model
3. Sends you a summary via iMessage

You get a text with the important stuff: deadlines, action items, key dates, who needs what from you. Everything else gets filtered out.

Why iMessage?

Because I actually read my texts.

Email notifications? Ignored. Slack? Muted. But texts cut through. When I get a summary on my phone, I read it. Usually within minutes.

It's a forcing function. The summary has to be good because it's competing with real messages from real people.

The privacy problem (and how I solved it)

Here's where it gets interesting.

Sending your emails to an AI service means sending your emails to someone else's servers. That's a non-starter for a lot of people. It was almost a non-starter for me.

So I built three options:

The Ollama option is actually the default. If you have a decent Mac (M1 or newer), you can run models like Llama 3.2 or Mistral locally. The summaries are good. Not quite Claude-level, but good enough for most use cases.

And if you do choose Claude or OpenAI, there's an optional content filter that redacts sensitive patterns (account numbers, SSNs, etc.) before sending anything to their APIs.

Technical details for the skeptics

I built this for myself first, which means I built it paranoid:

The website is equally minimal: no cookies, no tracking pixels, no Google Analytics, no email signup forms. Just a download link.

Multiple accounts

Most email apps assume you have one inbox. I have four.

MailToMessage handles multiple accounts. Each gets its own section in the summary:

📧 work:
• Q1 report due Friday - Sarah needs your section
• Meeting moved to 3pm tomorrow
• Travel approval for Austin trip confirmed

📧 personal:
• Package arriving Thursday
• Dentist appointment reminder (Feb 3)

You can enable/disable accounts individually. Maybe you want work emails summarized but not personal. Your call.

Scheduling

Default schedule is 9am, 1pm, and 6pm. But it's fully configurable.

• Want a single daily digest at 7am? Done.
• Want updates every 2 hours during work hours? Done.
• Want to skip weekends? There's a toggle for that.

There's also a "Run Now" button for when you need an immediate summary.

What the AI actually does

The prompt is straightforward:

1. Count total emails
2. Lead with urgent items and deadlines
3. Extract action items
4. Include key names, dates, numbers
5. Keep it under 3000 characters (adjustable)
6. Skip pleasantries

The AI doesn't try to be clever. It doesn't add commentary. It just compresses information.

Smart batching handles large volumes. If you have 100+ emails, it processes them in chunks and combines the summaries. You still get a coherent overview.

What it costs

The app is free.

If you use Claude or OpenAI, you pay for API usage (usually pennies per summary). If you use Ollama, it's completely free.

System requirements

Why I'm sharing this

I've been using this daily. It changed how I interact with email. I check my inbox maybe twice a day now instead of constantly. The important stuff finds me.

Maybe it'll help you too.