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Accuracy of automation: Can it correctly identify spam, promotional content, and important messages without moving things you need to see?
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Writing quality: If the tool generates text, does it match your tone and context, or does it require significant editing?
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Privacy and security: How does it handle your email data? Is it encrypted? Who can access it?
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Speed of analysis: Does summarisation happen instantly, or do you wait for processing?
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User control: Can you easily override or customise what the tool does, or does it make decisions you can't influence?
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Learning curve: How much time will setup and configuration take before you see real benefits?
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Cost at scale: Does pricing grow as you use it more, or stay flat?
The Top Options
ChatGPT Writer ChatGPT Writer integrates ChatGPT directly into your email interface, allowing you to generate entire emails or quick replies without leaving Gmail or Outlook.
What it does well
This tool shines when you're facing the blank page problem.
You can highlight an email thread, ask ChatGPT Writer to draft a response, and it will generate text that matches the conversation's tone. It works for longer messages too: give it a skeleton outline and it fills in the details. The generated text is usually coherent and grammatically sound, saving you 10 to 15 minutes per email in many cases.
Pricing
ChatGPT Writer offers a free tier with limited monthly requests. The paid version runs around £10 to £20 per month depending on your subscription level, or you can use it as part of ChatGPT Plus (£16/month).
Best for
People who spend significant time writing formal or semi-formal emails and struggle to find the right words. Also useful for non-native English speakers who want to ensure their writing is polished before sending.
Limitations
The generated text can feel generic if you don't provide detailed context. You'll often need to personalise or adjust what it produces. It also doesn't help with inbox organisation or filtering, so it addresses only one part of email overload. Additionally, there's a learning curve to writing effective prompts that get you results you'll use without heavy editing.
SaneBox SaneBox is an email management service that sits between you and your email provider, learning your habits and automatically sorting incoming mail into custom categories.
What it does well
SaneBox analyses every email you receive and learns what matters to you.
It catches newsletters, notifications, and low-priority messages, moving them to a separate folder so your main inbox stays focused on actual communication. Over time, it becomes more accurate because it learns from your behaviour (which emails you read, which you archive, which you respond to). It also highlights emails from important contacts that might have been missed.
Pricing
Free tier includes basic sorting into an "inbox later" folder for lower-priority mail. The paid plan costs around £4.99 per month and adds features like blocked senders lists, focus time settings, and integration with more email providers including Exchange and IMAP accounts.
Best for
Anyone drowning in newsletters, marketing emails, and notifications who wants an inbox that shows only genuinely important messages. Works particularly well for people who receive 50+ emails daily.
Limitations
It requires you to trust the AI's sorting decisions, which can take a few weeks to tune. Some important emails occasionally end up in the "later" folder, requiring manual correction. It doesn't generate content or summarise messages, so it's purely a filtering and organisation tool. Setup requires connecting your email account, which some organisations restrict for security reasons.
Smmry Smmry is a summarisation tool that takes long articles, email chains, or documents and distils them into clear, key points in seconds.
What it does well
When you receive a lengthy email thread or someone forwards you a 5,000-word article, Smmry can summarise it in under a second.
The summaries preserve the core information whilst removing redundancy and filler. You can set the summary length (50%, 25%, or 10% of original) depending on how much detail you need. It works on web pages, PDF documents, and email, making it versatile for different content types.
Pricing
Free tier includes basic summarisation with unlimited requests. Premium version (around £3 to £5 per month) offers higher accuracy and the ability to summarise very long documents.
Best for
People who receive regular long-form content or complex email threads and need to understand the essentials quickly. Useful for managers who need to digest detailed reports, or team members catching up on async communication.
Limitations
Summaries can sometimes miss nuance or context, especially in emails with subtle tone or implied meaning. It doesn't integrate directly with most email clients (you typically copy-paste content or use a browser extension). It also doesn't help with writing or organisation, only with understanding existing content faster.
Prerequisites
Before implementing these tools, you'll need: - An active email account with a major provider: Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, or an IMAP/Exchange-compatible service
- A modern web browser with extension support (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari)
- No coding knowledge required; these are all click-and-connect tools
- About 10 to 15 minutes for initial setup and configuration
- For ChatGPT Writer: a ChatGPT account (free tier is sufficient to start)
- For SaneBox: permission to connect your email account to a third-party service (check your organisation's policies)
- For Smmry: either a free account or bookmark the website for on-demand summarisation
- Optional: an API key if you want to integrate Smmry with other tools, though not necessary for basic use
Our Recommendation
Here's what we'd suggest: start with SaneBox if your main problem is inbox clutter, or with Smmry if you're drowning in long messages you need to understand quickly. If you spend hours writing email responses, begin with ChatGPT Writer. Ideally, use all three in combination. SaneBox handles organisation so your inbox feels manageable. Smmry lets you quickly grasp what matters in any given message. ChatGPT Writer speeds up your response time. Together, they address email overload from multiple angles without requiring you to change your workflow dramatically. If you're in a corporate environment with strict security policies, start with ChatGPT Writer (it requires minimal integration) and skip SaneBox until you've checked whether your IT team permits it.
Getting Started
Here's how to set up SaneBox, which delivers the most immediate impact for most people:
Step 1: Sign up for SaneBox
Visit sanebox.com and click "Sign Up". Use your work email address. You'll be sent a verification link.
Step 2: Authorise your email account
SaneBox will ask permission to connect to your email provider. Choose your provider from the list (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) and complete the OAuth authorisation. This is secure and means SaneBox can't access your password.
Step 3: Allow learning time
Once connected, SaneBox begins analysing your inbox. It typically takes 3 to 5 days of normal email activity for it to learn your patterns accurately. During this time, low-priority emails will start moving to an "Inbox Later" folder.
Step 4: Review and correct
Check the "Inbox Later" folder daily for the first week. If SaneBox misclassifies something (marking an important email as low priority), drag it back to your main inbox. The tool learns from these corrections.
Step 5: Customise settings
Once learning is complete, visit your SaneBox settings to exclude certain senders from automated sorting, set focus time rules, or add additional email providers if you use multiple accounts. Within two weeks, you'll notice your inbox feels significantly clearer, and you'll have reclaimed time previously spent on email triage. From there, layer in ChatGPT Writer for drafting responses and Smmry for understanding long content, and you've built a genuinely intelligent email system.