Email Triage Workflow

Email triage is the most popular OpenClaw workflow -- and for good reason. If you receive more than 50 emails a day, this automation can save you 30-60 minutes every morning.

What You Will Build#

An email triage system that:

1. Scans your inbox every morning (or continuously)
2. Categorizes every email by priority and type
3. Generates a summary sent to you via Telegram or Slack
4. Drafts responses for routine emails you can approve with one tap

Prerequisites#

• OpenClaw installed and running (Installation guide)
• A messaging platform connected (Messaging setup)
• An LLM configured (LLM setup)

Step 1: Install Email Skills#

# For Gmail
openclaw skill install gmail-reader

# For Outlook/Office 365
openclaw skill install outlook-reader

# For any IMAP server
openclaw skill install imap-reader

For Gmail, generate an App Password:

1. Go to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
2. Create an app password for "OpenClaw"
3. Configure: openclaw config set gmail.appPassword "xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"

Step 2: Create the Triage Agent#

Create ~/.openclaw/agents/email-triage/AGENT.md:

# Email Triage Agent

You are an email triage assistant. Your job is to help me manage my inbox efficiently.

## Categories
Sort every email into exactly one category:
- **URGENT**: Requires response today. Client emails with deadlines, billing alerts, security notifications.
- **ACTION**: Requires response this week. Project updates needing decisions, meeting requests, document reviews.
- **FYI**: No response needed. Status updates, newsletters worth reading, team announcements.
- **SKIP**: Auto-archive. Marketing emails, social media notifications, subscription confirmations.

## Summary Format
For each email in URGENT or ACTION:
- Sender name and email
- Subject line
- One sentence summary of what they want
- Suggested action (respond, forward, schedule meeting, etc.)

For FYI: Just the subject line and one sentence.

SKIP emails: Just count them.

## Response Drafts
For URGENT emails, draft a response I can review and send. Keep it professional but concise. Match the tone of the original email.

## Rules
- Always put URGENT items first
- If an email is from [client list], always mark as URGENT
- If an email mentions money, contracts, or deadlines, mark as URGENT
- Keep the entire summary under 500 words

Step 3: Schedule the Morning Triage#

openclaw cron add "email-triage" \
  --schedule "0 7 * * 1-5" \
  --agent "email-triage" \
  --message "Triage my inbox from the last 12 hours" \
  --channel "telegram"

This runs Monday through Friday at 7 AM.

Step 4: Test Manually#

openclaw run --agent email-triage "Triage my inbox from the last 12 hours"

Example Output#

INBOX TRIAGE - Wednesday, March 8 (42 new emails)

URGENT (3)
1. Sarah Chen (sarah@client.com)
   "Q1 Report Review - Need sign-off by EOD"
   -> Review the attached report and approve. Estimated 15 min.
   [Draft response ready]

2. AWS Billing (no-reply@aws.amazon.com)
   "Billing Alert: 180% usage increase in us-east-1"
   -> Check CloudWatch. Possible runaway Lambda function.

3. Legal Team (legal@company.com)
   "NDA for Project Phoenix - Signature Required"
   -> DocuSign link inside. Takes 2 minutes.

ACTION (7)
1. Design Team: Feedback on v3 dashboard mockups (due Friday)
2. HR: Benefits enrollment reminder (due March 15)
3. Engineering: RFC for API v2 migration (review requested)
4. Product: Sprint planning meeting invite (Thursday 2pm)
...

FYI (12)
- Company all-hands moved to Friday 3pm
- Engineering blog post published: "Our Observability Stack"
- New hire announcement: Jamie joining DevOps
...

SKIPPED: 20 emails auto-archived (marketing, social notifications)

Advanced: Continuous Triage#

Instead of a morning summary, run continuous triage:

openclaw cron add "email-watch" \
  --schedule "*/15 * * * *" \
  --agent "email-triage" \
  --message "Check for new urgent emails in the last 15 minutes. Only notify me if something is URGENT." \
  --channel "telegram"

This checks every 15 minutes and only notifies you for urgent items.

Advanced: Auto-Drafting Responses#

For routine emails (meeting confirmations, simple questions), the agent can draft and queue responses:

Add to your AGENT.md:

## Auto-Draft Rules
For these email types, draft a response automatically:
- Meeting invitations: Accept and confirm
- Simple questions with obvious answers: Draft a concise reply
- Receipt/confirmation requests: Acknowledge receipt

Mark every draft as [DRAFT - REVIEW BEFORE SENDING].
Never send anything without my explicit approval.

## Troubleshooting

Gmail access failing?

• Verify your app password is correct
• Ensure IMAP is enabled in Gmail settings
• Check if Google is blocking sign-in attempts (check your security alerts)

Missing emails?

• Check the time range in your triage prompt
• Verify the email skill has access to all folders (not just inbox)

Poor categorization?

• Be more specific in your AGENT.md about what counts as urgent
• Add examples of emails from your actual inbox
• Use a stronger model (Claude Sonnet or Opus)

Cost#

Email triage with Claude Sonnet typically costs $0.05-0.50 per day depending on volume:

• 50 emails/day: ~$0.05-0.10
• 200 emails/day: ~$0.20-0.50
• With auto-drafting: +$0.10-0.20/day

Next Steps#

• DevOps Workflow -- Automate your engineering pipeline
• Content Creation -- Automate content pipelines
• Security Guide -- Secure your email integration