Most people lose an hour a day to email. Reading it, sorting it, replying to it, and still missing the things that actually matter. This guide turns that hour into about 10 minutes a day. You connect Claude to Gmail, schedule a daily task, and paste in one master prompt. From then on, Claude wakes up before you do, scans your inbox, pulls your real schedule out of confirmations and calendar invites, surfaces what is urgent, and drafts every reply in your voice. You open Claude, scan the briefing, click Send on the good drafts, and you are done.
The setup takes about 5 minutes. Claude never sends anything on its own. You stay in control. The drafts just save you the time of writing every response from scratch.
What You Need
- A paid Claude plan (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise). Scheduled tasks need one.
- A Gmail account
- About 5 minutes to set it up once
New to Cowork? Set it up first with my Claude Cowork Setup Guide.
Set It Up in 3 Steps
Step 1: Connect Gmail
- Open Claude. If your message box shows Chat and Cowork options, pick Cowork. If it doesn't, you have the new combined Claude and can skip this step.
- Click Customize in the left sidebar
- Click Connectors
- Search for Gmail
- Click Connect and sign in with your Google account
- Approve the access Google asks for
This uses the official Gmail connector. Claude can read your emails, search your inbox, and create drafts. The connector can also send and reply now, but Claude asks for your approval before each one, and the master prompt tells it to draft only. Your emails stay in your account.
Step 2: Create a Scheduled Task
- Click Scheduled in the left sidebar
- Click New Task
- Choose Set Up Manually
- Name it Morning Emails
- Paste in the Master Prompt below
- Set the schedule to Daily at 7:00 AM, or whatever time you wake up
Set the schedule for 30 to 60 minutes before you normally check email. By the time you sit down, the briefing is ready and every draft is waiting for you. Scheduled tasks now run in the cloud, so the briefing runs even if your laptop is closed.
Step 3: Paste the Master Prompt
The master prompt is the brain of the whole system. It tells Claude how to scan your inbox, what to prioritize, how to structure the briefing, and how to draft replies in your voice.
The Master Prompt
Copy this entire prompt and paste it into your Morning Emails scheduled task.
# MORNING BRIEFING You have access to my Gmail. Produce my morning briefing in the exact structure below. Do not send anything. Draft only. Match my writing voice in every draft. Before drafting, scan my recent sent emails to learn my tone, sentence length, greetings, sign-offs, and how formal or casual I am with different types of senders. Mirror that. No em dashes. Read the inbox for what is actually happening, not just what needs a reply. Pull dates, times, and commitments out of the emails themselves: calendar invites, meeting confirmations, call bookings (Calendly, Cal.com, Zoom, Google Meet), flight and hotel confirmations, restaurant or appointment reservations, delivery and shipping windows, deadlines mentioned in threads, and any 'see you at X' type messages. Treat these as my real schedule even though they live in email. # 1. DAY AT A GLANCE A 3 to 4 sentence plain-language summary of what today actually looks like based on what you found in the inbox. What I'm walking into, where my time goes, anything that needs a decision or prep before it happens. Write it like a sharp assistant briefing me in the hallway, not a list. # 2. WHAT'S ON TODAY Everything happening today that you pulled from email, in time order. For each: - Time and what it is - Who it's with (if anyone) - One line on what it's for or what I should walk in knowing Include calls, meetings, bookings, reservations, deliveries, and deadlines. Flag anything with no confirmed time, anything that looks double-booked, and the first hard commitment of the day. If something is happening today but the details are thin, say so rather than guessing. # 3. INBOX SUMMARY Go through all my unread emails. Give me a quick scan so I can see the shape of the inbox fast: - How many unread total - A one-line summary of each meaningful thread (skip pure noise, newsletters, and automated junk unless something in them actually matters) # 4. URGENT Pull out the emails that genuinely need me today. Time-sensitive, someone's blocked on me, a deadline, money, or a relationship that costs something if I go quiet. For each: - Sender and subject - Why it's urgent in one line - What it's asking me to do # 5. IMPORTANT BUT NOT URGENT Emails that matter but can wait. Things I should not lose track of but don't need to touch this morning. One line each on what it is and a rough sense of when it'll go stale. # 6. DRAFTED REPLIES For every unread email that warrants a response, write a full reply in my voice, ready to send. Do not send any of them. For each, show me: - Who it's to and the subject - The draft reply Keep them tight and in my style. If an email needs information I don't have, write the draft with a clearly marked [placeholder] for the part I need to fill in, rather than guessing. If an email genuinely doesn't need a reply, don't invent one. # 7. ANYTHING ELSE Things you noticed that I'd want flagged. A booking I never confirmed, a call invite I haven't accepted, two appointments that overlap, a thread going quiet that shouldn't, someone who's emailed twice with no answer, a follow-up I promised and never sent, a reservation or delivery happening today I might have forgotten about. Use judgment here. This is the section where you act like someone who actually pays attention.
Claude drafts replies but never sends them. You always review and click Send yourself. This keeps you in control while still saving you the time of writing every response from scratch.
How Claude Learns Your Voice
The master prompt tells Claude to scan your recent sent emails before drafting anything. This is what makes the drafts sound like you instead of a robot. Claude picks up on whether you say Hey or Hi or skip the greeting entirely, whether you sign off with your name or just an initial, how long your sentences run, and how formal you get with clients versus friends.
This gets better over time. The more of your sent emails Claude reads, the closer the drafts get to how you actually write. Most of your edits end up being specific details Claude did not have.
If you want to accelerate the voice learning, start a separate Claude chat and paste in 10 of your best sent emails. Say: 'Analyze my writing style across these emails. Document my tone, sentence structure, greetings, sign-offs, and any patterns you notice.' Save the output and paste it into your scheduled task prompt as a reference section. Want every draft to sound even more like you? My guide to making AI writing sound like you goes deeper.
Bonus: VIP Sender Rules
Not every email is equal. Your CEO's message matters more than a vendor follow-up. Add this block to the end of your master prompt to tell Claude exactly who your VIPs are and how to handle their emails differently.
# VIP SENDER RULES These senders always go to the top of the urgent section regardless of content: - [BOSS NAME] ([email]) - Always urgent. Always draft a reply. Tone: professional but warm. - [CLIENT NAME] ([email]) - Always urgent. Tone: formal, proactive, solution-oriented. - [PARTNER/SPOUSE] ([email]) - Always surface. Tone: casual, short, personal. - [INVESTOR/BOARD] ([email]) - Always urgent. Tone: polished, concise, data-backed. For VIP senders, also flag: - How long since their last email went unanswered - Any pattern of increasing urgency in the thread - Whether they CC'd someone new (signals escalation) // Add up to 10 VIP senders // Claude will prioritize these above everything else
You can also add negative rules. If there is a sender who always emails you things that do not need a reply, add them to a 'Never draft a reply for' list so Claude skips them.
Bonus: Friday Weekly Digest
The morning briefing handles daily email. Once a week, you want a bigger picture. This prompt gives you a full digest of everything that happened in your inbox over the past week: threads that resolved, things still open, people you owe replies to, and patterns Claude noticed. Set this as a second scheduled task that runs every Friday at 4pm.
# WEEKLY INBOX DIGEST Scan my Gmail for the past 7 days. Build a digest: # 1. THIS WEEK BY THE NUMBERS - Total emails received - Total emails sent - Average response time - Longest unanswered thread (and who it's from) - Busiest day of the week # 2. THREADS THAT CLOSED THIS WEEK One line each. What was it, who was involved, how did it resolve. This is my weekly record. # 3. STILL OPEN Threads that are not resolved. For each: - What it is and who is involved - What the next action is and who owns it - How stale it is getting # 4. PEOPLE I OWE A REPLY TO Anyone who emailed me this week and got no response. For each: how many days ago, and a suggested one-line reply to close the loop. # 5. PATTERNS AND FLAGS Anything you noticed over the week: - Someone emailing more frequently (could signal a problem or opportunity) - A thread that is escalating in tone - Follow-ups I promised and never sent - Meetings or calls that were scheduled but never confirmed - Any recurring email I could automate or create a template for # 6. NEXT WEEK PREVIEW What is already in the inbox for next week: meetings, deadlines, commitments, and anything I should prep for over the weekend.
Daily briefings keep you reactive. The weekly digest makes you proactive. It catches the dropped balls you would have missed without it.
Bonus: Automatic Follow-Up Tracker
One of the biggest problems with email is not incoming messages. It is outgoing messages that never got a response. You send a proposal, an ask, or a question, and you forget to follow up. This prompt scans your sent folder for threads where you are waiting on someone and they have gone quiet.
# FOLLOW-UP TRACKER Scan my sent emails from the past 14 days. Find every email I sent that: - Asked a question that was never answered - Sent a proposal or document with no reply - Said 'let me know' or 'thoughts?' or 'can you confirm' and got no response - Ended with an open action item for the other person For each, show me: - Who I emailed and the subject - What I was waiting for - How many days ago I sent it - A draft follow-up email (short, not pushy, just a gentle nudge in my voice) Prioritize by: 1. Money or revenue involved 2. Deadline approaching 3. VIP sender (see VIP rules) 4. Days waiting (longest first) If someone has replied since I sent it but I have not responded to their reply, flag that separately as 'Ball is in my court.'
Run this alongside your morning briefing or as a separate task every 2 days. The follow-up tracker catches the threads your daily briefing misses because they are in your sent folder, silently going stale.
Bonus: Reusable Email Templates
If you find yourself writing the same type of email over and over, add templates to your prompt. Claude will use them automatically when the situation matches.
# EMAIL TEMPLATES When drafting replies, use these templates as a starting point for common situations. Adapt them to fit the specific email and keep my voice. ## MEETING REQUEST When someone asks to meet or hop on a call: '[greeting]. [day/time] works for me. Here's my Calendly if that's easier: [LINK]. [sign-off]' ## INTRO REQUEST When someone asks me to introduce them to someone: 'Happy to connect you. Let me check with [name] first and I'll loop you both in if they're open to it. [sign-off]' ## NOT INTERESTED (polite decline) When a vendor, recruiter, or cold email lands: 'Appreciate you reaching out. Not the right fit for me right now, but I'll keep you in mind. [sign-off]' ## DELAY / NEED MORE TIME When I can't respond fully yet: 'Got this. Going to need a couple days to look through it properly. I'll follow up by [day]. [sign-off]' // Add your own templates here // Claude will match the situation automatically
Claude does not just copy-paste templates. It uses them as a framework and adapts them to the specific email, the relationship with the sender, and your voice.
Bonus: The Inbox Zero Prompt
If your inbox is a disaster right now, run this prompt once to get to zero. Then let the daily morning briefing keep it there. This prompt processes your entire backlog: archives the noise, flags what matters, drafts everything that needs a reply, and gives you a clean starting point.
# INBOX ZERO I want to get to inbox zero today. Go through every unread email in my inbox and sort them: # TIER 1: REPLY NOW Emails that need a response today. Draft each reply in my voice. Show me sender, subject, and the draft. # TIER 2: REPLY THIS WEEK Emails that need a response but are not urgent. One line each on what they need and a suggested day to handle them. # TIER 3: READ AND ARCHIVE Emails I should read but do not need to reply to. One line each on what they say. After I read your summary, these can be archived. # TIER 4: ARCHIVE WITHOUT READING Newsletters, promotions, automated notifications, and anything that has zero value. List them so I can confirm, then archive all of them. # TIER 5: UNSUBSCRIBE Recurring emails I keep getting that I clearly never open. Suggest which ones I should unsubscribe from to reduce future volume. After processing everything, tell me: - How many emails were in each tier - How many drafts are ready to send - How many can be archived right now - Estimated time to clear the rest manually
Run the inbox zero prompt on a Sunday evening. By Monday morning, your inbox is clean and the daily morning briefing takes over.
Bonus: Smart Out-of-Office Mode
Going on vacation but do not want to come back to 300 unread emails? Instead of a generic auto-reply, keep your morning briefing running while you are away but add a vacation layer. Claude triages your inbox daily, drafts replies for anything truly urgent, and builds you a single re-entry briefing so you can catch up in 10 minutes when you get back.
# VACATION MODE BRIEFING I am out of office from [START DATE] to [END DATE]. Run the normal morning briefing but with changes: 1. Only flag emails as urgent if they are truly time-sensitive (money, legal, someone blocked on a hard deadline). Everything else goes to 'handle when back.' 2. For urgent emails, draft a short reply that: - Acknowledges the email - Says I'm out until [END DATE] - Directs them to [BACKUP PERSON] for anything that can't wait - Sounds like me, not a corporate auto-reply 3. Keep a running log of everything that came in each day. When I return, compile it into one 'Return Briefing' that covers: - Everything that happened while I was gone - What got handled - What is waiting for me - Suggested order to tackle it - Any relationships that need attention (someone emailed 3 times with no reply) 4. Do NOT draft replies for non-urgent emails. Just log them. I will handle them when I'm back.
When you return, ask Claude: 'Give me my return briefing.' It compiles everything from while you were away into one document: what happened, what got handled, what is waiting, and the best order to work through it.
Pro Tips
Start with drafts only. For the first week, just use the briefing and drafted replies. Get comfortable with the quality before adding more automation.
Review and send in batches. Do not check email throughout the day. Open the briefing, review the drafts, click Send on the good ones, edit the rest, and close your inbox. Twice a day is enough for most people.
Teach Claude your exceptions. If Claude keeps drafting replies you do not like, add a note to the prompt: 'When [situation], do [this] instead.' It learns fast.
Stack your scheduled tasks. Run the morning briefing at 7am, the follow-up tracker at 2pm, and the weekly digest on Fridays at 4pm. Three tasks cover your entire email life. Want the rest of your week on autopilot too? See my Claude Routines guide.
Use labels as signals. If you use Gmail labels, tell Claude in the prompt: 'Emails labeled [Client] are always high priority. Emails labeled [Newsletter] never need a reply.'
Never add your email password or sensitive credentials to the prompt. The Gmail connector handles authentication securely through OAuth. Your prompt should only contain preferences and instructions, never login credentials.
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