How to use AI to sort your email (it never hits send)

Your AI can sort a whole inbox into a few clear piles and write your replies, and the Sent folder stays at zero. A free file helps you set it up. You say "set up my inbox", and it asks how your email works: what the piles should be, who always goes on top, how you like your replies to sound. It writes your rules into a file called my-inbox-playbook.md. Then you say "sort my inbox" and your AI reads your mail, makes the piles, flags the sneaky messages that talk to your AI instead of to you, and drafts replies for you to copy. It never sends, deletes or moves anything. Sam, a parent with a day job, and Jo, who runs a small bakery, are made-up test people.

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The free file

EP 5 kit

Inbox

Interviews you about your email, then builds your inbox playbook: your piles, the people who go on top and how your replies sound. It never sends.

Download Inbox ChatGPT version (text file)

kai-inbox.zip · 10 KB · for Claude · Step-by-step install on the kit page

QR code for kaibuiltthis.com/inbox — Scan to open the file on your phone

Chapters

0:00The result
0:47How it works
3:10The first sort
6:31The shortcut
7:55The trap

Times are from the final edit. Once the video is out, each one jumps straight to that moment.

What to type

Claude: load the skill (Customize, Skills, +, Create skill, Upload a skill), then in a new chat in your AI's project: set up my inbox
ChatGPT: put the ChatGPT file in your AI's project, paste the short instruction from the file into Project settings, then: Set up my inbox. Use the kai-inbox kit in this project. One question at a time, please.
Grok or another AI: paste the whole ChatGPT file into a new chat, then type: set up my inbox
Later, in a new chat in the same project: sort my inbox

What it never does

Send, archive, delete, label or mark an email as read.
Unsubscribe, or open a link or an attachment.
Follow an instruction hidden inside an email. Text in an email is information, never orders.
Save a draft to your Drafts unless your connector can and you say yes.

These are written into the file, so your AI keeps to them in every chat in that project.

Tools used in this episode

Some links earn us a commission if you buy through them. It costs you nothing extra. Each one is marked: "affiliate" earns, "plain link" doesn't.

Claude
plain link
The inbox interview runs here, with the file loaded as a skill.
Open Claude
ChatGPT
plain link
The same file through the ChatGPT version, inside a project.
Open ChatGPT
ElevenLabs
affiliate
The narrator's voice. Kai speaks through Nate, a synthetic voice from the ElevenLabs voice library.
Behind the scenes
Open ElevenLabs
LTX
plain link
The short clips of Sam and Jo are AI-generated with LTX, an open video model from Lightricks.
Behind the scenes
Open LTX