OpenClaw for Email Management: Automate Your Inbox

OpenClaw email automation is one of the highest-impact use cases — the average professional spends 2.5 hours per day on email. An OpenClaw agent with a Gmail or Outlook skill can dramatically reduce that time by summarizing, prioritizing, drafting, and even sending routine emails on your behalf. Here's how to set it up.

Installing the Email Skill

# For Gmail
python -m openclaw skill install gmail-manager

# For Outlook/Microsoft 365
python -m openclaw skill install outlook-manager

Both skills require OAuth authorization to your email account during setup.

What Email Automation Can Do

Inbox summarization: Ask your agent "What's in my inbox?" and receive a prioritized summary: urgent emails first, then important, then informational, with spam/noise identified separately.

Draft replies: "Draft a reply to the email from David declining the meeting but suggesting Thursday instead" — your agent drafts the email for your review.

Send routine emails: With confirmation enabled (recommended), your agent can send templated responses automatically: "When I receive an invoice, send an acknowledgment email."

Priority filtering: Configure your agent to notify you on Telegram only when emails from specific senders or containing specific keywords arrive.

Newsletter unsubscribe: "Find all newsletter emails from the past month and unsubscribe from the ones I've never opened."

Configuration Example

{
  "skills": {
    "gmail-manager": {
      "check_interval_minutes": 15,
      "priority_senders": ["boss@company.com", "client@important.com"],
      "notify_channel": "telegram",
      "draft_mode": true,
      "auto_send": false
    }
  }
}

Set auto_send: false to always require your review before sending. Enable only after the agent has proven reliable.

Setting Up the Morning Email Digest

Configure a scheduled email digest:

{
  "scheduler": {
    "tasks": [{
      "name": "email_digest",
      "cron": "0 8 * * *",
      "action": "run",
      "prompt": "Summarize my unread emails from the past 18 hours. Prioritize by urgency. Draft a suggested reply for anything urgent.",
      "output_channel": "telegram"
    }]
  }
}

Privacy Considerations

Your email content passes through your LLM provider's API. If you're using Anthropic or OpenAI, their data usage policies apply. For sensitive email (legal, medical, financial), consider using DeepSeek with contractual data processing agreements, or a locally-run Ollama model for maximum privacy.

Getting the Most Value

The email skill is most valuable when you give your agent clear rules. In the system prompt and through explicit conversations:

• "Emails about project Alpha are high priority"
• "Sales outreach from unknown senders can be auto-archived"
• "I never want draft emails sent without my confirmation"

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to give OpenClaw access to my email?

The gmail-manager skill uses OAuth2, which grants limited, revocable access without sharing your password. You can revoke access at any time from Google's security settings. The main risk is the email content being processed by your LLM provider.

Can OpenClaw handle email threads, not just individual emails?

Yes. The gmail-manager skill supports thread-level context, allowing your agent to understand an entire email conversation before drafting a reply.

What happens if my agent sends a wrong email?

This is why auto_send: false is the recommended starting config. Always review drafts before enabling any auto-send functionality. Start conservative and expand permissions as you build trust.