Every 10 minutes
Get draft replies to emails that need an answer
Emails that need a reply get a draft in the same thread, ready for you to edit and send.
- Runs
- Every 10 minutes
- Apps
- Gmail
- AI
- Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
- Access
- read+write (gmail.modify or gmail.compose)
Send this to your assistant
Create a ClickRuntime automation: when an email arrives that needs a reply from me, write a short draft in my tone and save it as a Gmail draft in the same thread. Never send it.
First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.
Why use it
Why teams use this automation
Many people have a few dozen emails a day that each need a short, sensible answer: confirm a meeting, send a document link, say thanks, give a price range. Writing each one costs a few minutes, and the cost is the switching, not the typing. Replies pile up until the evening, and the delay itself becomes the problem when a client assumes they were ignored.
Every 10 minutes new inbox messages are read. ClickRuntime's built-in AI decides whether a reply is needed and, if so, writes it. The draft is saved in the same Gmail thread, with the right threadId and In-Reply-To headers, so it appears under the original message ready for you to edit and send.
Consultants, recruiters, sales reps and anyone with a heavy inbox of routine messages benefit most.
What you get out of it
Drafts wait where you already look
Because drafts are saved in the original thread, you find them next to the message and not in a separate tool, which keeps your normal Gmail routine intact. It feels like having a thoughtful assistant sitting in your inbox.
Only messages that need a reply get one
The AI first decides whether a reply is needed, so notifications and newsletters are not filled with pointless drafts and your drafts folder stays useful. That judgment is what separates a helpful assistant from a noisy one.
Short answers cost seconds, not minutes
Reviewing a draft is much faster than composing from nothing, which turns a block of inbox time into a quick pass of reading and pressing send. Many people find that the inbox stops feeling like a chore.
Nothing leaves without your approval
The draft sits unsent until you decide, so a wrong assumption never reaches the recipient, which is important for sensitive or high-value conversations. Control stays with you on anything important or delicate.
Threads stay correct
Headers attach the draft to the right conversation, so the reply threads properly for the recipient, with no broken or duplicated conversations to tidy up. Tidy threads also make future searches simpler for you and for the other person.
How it works
What happens, step by step
Every 10 minutes ClickRuntime checks your Gmail primary inbox for new emails from other people.
It skips emails it has already looked at.
AI decides whether each email needs a reply and, if so, writes a short one in your voice.
The reply is saved as a draft in the same Gmail conversation. Nothing is sent until you review it and press send.
Before it runs live
- Connect Google through your own Google app (a one-time, 10-minute setup), so it works with your own Gmail
What you get
Build your own
Need it to work differently?
Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.
Changes you can ask for
- Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
- Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
- Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
- Combine it with other Gmail steps into one automation
Under the hood
The code that runs this automation
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
import base64
from email.message import EmailMessage
from clickruntime import on_trigger, report_fetched, credentials, state, ai
@on_trigger
def run(event):
gmail = build("gmail", "v1", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False)
msgs = gmail.users().messages().list(userId="me", q="in:inbox category:primary newer_than:1d -from:me").execute().get("messages", [])
done = set(state.get("done") or [])
new = [m for m in msgs if m["id"] not in done]
report_fetched(len(new))
if not new:
return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
drafted = 0
for m in new:
msg = gmail.users().messages().get(userId="me", id=m["id"], format="metadata",
metadataHeaders=["From", "Subject", "Message-ID"]).execute()
h = {x["name"]: x["value"] for x in msg["payload"]["headers"]}
reply = ai.generate(f"If this email needs a personal reply, write a short, friendly one in first person. "
f"Otherwise answer NO_REPLY.\nFrom: {h['From']}\nSubject: {h['Subject']}\n{msg['snippet']}",
max_output_tokens=300).text.strip()
done.add(m["id"])
if reply == "NO_REPLY":
continue
draft = EmailMessage()
draft["To"], draft["Subject"] = h["From"], "Re: " + h["Subject"]
draft["In-Reply-To"] = draft["References"] = h.get("Message-ID", "")
draft.set_content(reply)
raw = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(draft.as_bytes()).decode()
gmail.users().drafts().create(userId="me", body={"message": {"raw": raw, "threadId": msg["threadId"]}}).execute()
drafted += 1
state.set("done", sorted(done)[-1000:])
return {"drafted": drafted}FAQ
Common questions
Will it write drafts for newsletters and automated mail?
Can the draft sound like me?
What happens to drafts I never send?
What permissions does it need?
Does it need AI?
How many runs does it use?
Can I change how it works?
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