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Weekly

Find questions you haven't answered

Each Friday you get a list of emails where someone asked you something and you haven't replied.

Runs
Weekly
Apps
Gmail
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every Friday at 4pm, find emails from the past week where someone asked me a direct question I haven't replied to, and email me the list with links.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A direct question in an email is a small debt, and everyone carries a few they have forgotten. A colleague asked whether the numbers were final, a client asked for a call time, a supplier needed a yes or no. You read the message on your phone, planned to answer later and moved on. A week later the person has stopped waiting politely and the cost is a strained relationship or a delayed decision.

Every week, inbox threads from the past 7 days are listed and any where you wrote the last message are skipped. ClickRuntime's built-in AI reads the rest and picks out direct questions aimed at you. The result goes into a single email listing each question with the sender and a link, so you can clear the debts in one sitting.

Managers, consultants and customer-facing people who handle many conversations at once are the typical readers.

What you get out of it

  • Forgotten replies get found

    Questions that would otherwise be lost under newer mail are listed with links, so people who wrote to you a week ago finally receive an answer. A quick late reply still counts for a lot.

  • Relationships are protected

    Answering a question late is better than never, and most people forgive a short delay if you reply, which keeps trust intact with clients and colleagues. Trust grows when people feel their messages matter to you.

  • One focused clean-up session

    A single list lets you answer five overdue questions in fifteen minutes, which beats the vague guilt of knowing something is waiting somewhere in the inbox. That focused session is also much less stressful.

  • Only real questions appear

    Reading the content for direct questions to you filters out receipts and newsletters, so the list is short and each item deserves a response. Short lists get acted on, whereas long ones get ignored.

  • Decisions stop being stalled by you

    Many delays in a team come from one person who has not answered a yes or no, and a weekly list removes you from that role. Teams move faster once nobody is waiting on you.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Once a week ClickRuntime looks at the conversations in your Gmail inbox from the last seven days.

  2. It skips any conversation where you were the last to reply.

  3. AI reads the rest and picks out the ones where someone asked you a direct question.

  4. You get an email listing each question with the sender, subject and a link to the conversation.

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

RunsWeekly
Find questions you haven't answeredtoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · 3 questions waiting for youJo Brennan <jo@northwind.example> | Renewal | Could you confirm the seat count by Friday? https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/18f3c2a1b0d9e8f7

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • 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

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • 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

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
unanswered_questions_report.pyexample
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, ai, notify

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    gmail = build("gmail", "v1", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False)
    threads = gmail.users().threads().list(userId="me", q="in:inbox newer_than:7d -from:me", maxResults=100).execute().get("threads", [])
    candidates = []
    for t in threads:
        thread = gmail.users().threads().get(userId="me", id=t["id"], format="metadata",
                                             metadataHeaders=["From", "Subject"]).execute()
        last = thread["messages"][-1]
        if "SENT" in last["labelIds"] or "?" not in last["snippet"]:
            continue
        h = {x["name"]: x["value"] for x in last["payload"]["headers"]}
        candidates.append((t["id"], f"{h.get('From')} | {h.get('Subject')} | {last['snippet'][:300]}"))
    if not candidates:
        return {"open": 0}
    numbered = "\n".join(f"{i}. {text}" for i, (_, text) in enumerate(candidates, 1))
    picks = ai.generate("Which of these ask me a direct question? Reply with the numbers, comma separated.\n" + numbered,
                        max_output_tokens=60).text
    chosen = [candidates[int(n) - 1] for n in picks.replace(" ", "").split(",") if n.isdigit() and 0 < int(n) <= len(candidates)]
    body = "\n\n".join(f"{text}\nhttps://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/{tid}" for tid, text in chosen)
    notify.email_me(f"{len(chosen)} questions waiting for you", body or "None this week.")
    return {"open": len(chosen)}

FAQ

Common questions

How does it tell whether I have answered?
It checks the last message in each thread. If you sent it, the thread is skipped, since you have the last word. If the other person wrote last and asked a question, the thread can appear on the list.
Does it understand questions that have no question mark?
The AI reads the meaning, so a request like let me know if the budget is approved can be identified as a question even without punctuation. Borderline cases may appear, which is better than missing one.
Can I run it more often than weekly?
Yes. The schedule is a simple setting, so a daily or twice weekly report works if your inbox moves fast. You can also shorten the look-back window to match, and approve the change. The look-back window can match.
What permissions does it need?
read. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (weekly). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Find questions you haven't answered” from your assistant

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