Using AI for email triage

For the first time in a decade, I switched email apps. I’ve been a longtime Airmail user, but I moved to Spark for both macOS and iOS.

Spark Mail — Smart. Focused. Email.

Spark helps you take your inbox under control. Instantly see what’s important and quickly clean up the rest.

sparkmailapp.com

The AI features are what pushed me over the edge. The ability to prompt things like these have been incredibly helpful for keeping my inbox tidy:

“Archive all marketing emails older than 14 days”

“Show me all marketing emails I haven’t read that I probably want to unsubscribe from”

“Show me recent personal emails I haven’t replied to”

It is also nice to ask questions and get answers based on email as context instead of having to rely on keyword search. For example:

“What book did _____ recommend to me recently?”

“Get me all information for my trip to _____ next week.”

“What’s the latest update on _____ ?”

I don’t like AI for creative work, but I love it for analysis, debugging, triage, and rote tasks. I’ve been using AI to triage work ticket queues, and it hit me one evening that I should be using this power for my own email, too. I hate email, and I want to spend as little time on it as possible. AI helps with that.

The UI is nice, too.

Overall, Spark blows Airmail and Apple Mail out of the water. I can’t believe Apple is so far behind on their mail app, given that they’ve had a headstart with on-device ML and a gigantic user base for so long.

Setapp users will notice the Plus version of Spark is included.

Security concerns with having AI “read” your email? First, Google already “does” that. Second, use a different inbox (like Proton) and PGP for things you need secure. Or move it to Signal. Or go for a walk in the woods without your phone.