HOW IT WORKS

How Inbox Imp works

Every email you get goes through the same five steps. Nothing here is hidden, and nothing is ever erased. The most that happens to any message is a trip to your Trash, where you have 30 days to pull it back.

Start free

  1. New mail arrives

    Gmail tells Inbox Imp the moment something lands. Imp reads the message the way you would: who sent it, what the subject says, and the text itself. It only looks at mail from the window you chose during setup, unless you ask it to sort older mail too.

    Your connected inboxes

  2. Your policy and the AI read it

    Your policy is a plain-English document you own. Anything you spelled out (a named list, a rule you taught it) is applied exactly as written, every time. Everything your policy doesn't cover goes to the AI, which decides by reading the message with your policy as its instructions.

    Read your policy

  3. Safety protections

    Before anything moves, a fixed set of protections can overrule the AI. Money mail (receipts, charges, bills, statements) stays visible. Replies from real people stay in your inbox. Login and verification codes are never filed away while they're still good. Things you asked for, like a waitlist you joined or an invite you requested, are kept. These run on every message and don't depend on the AI getting it right.

    See what's protecting you

  4. What happens in Gmail

    Kept mail stays in your inbox. Filed mail is archived: it leaves the inbox, keeps its label, and stays fully searchable in Gmail. Two things can send mail to the Trash: a rule you wrote that says to, or a message Inbox Imp is confident is spam. Either way "delete" means Gmail's Trash: recoverable for 30 days, never a permanent erase.

    Search your mail

  5. Getting it back

    Every decision is listed in Activity, newest first, with one click to bring a message back. The undo banner after any action reverses it straight away. Anything that did reach the Trash sits there for about 30 days, and Gmail's search finds archived mail the whole time.

    See what Imp did

The piles

Three places mail can wait that aren't your inbox. Everything in them is still in Gmail, and nothing in them is deleted.

Set aside
Mail from your inbox setup that looked important, held here so it wouldn't flood your queue. Pull messages into your queue when you're ready, or archive them. Everything is still in your Gmail inbox, nothing deleted.
The pitch pile
Cold pitches from people you've never talked to: sales, recruiting, investor outreach. They're filed out of your way instead of interrupting you. Skim whenever you like; one tap puts any message back in your inbox.
Later
Not gone, just behind everything newer. It comes back around after the rest, and a new reply on the thread brings it back right away.
Open your queue

Which rule wins?

When two things could apply to the same email, they're settled in this order.

  1. Your named lists and rules. Anything you wrote down yourself is consent, so it goes first, including the rules that delete.
  2. The safety protections. Money mail, replies from real people, login codes, and things you asked for overrule the AI's judgment, but never a rule you wrote.
  3. Imp's judgment. Everything your policy and the protections don't decide.

If a decision looks wrong, correcting it in your queue teaches the policy. It doesn't just move one message. Imp suggests the change and waits for you: nothing is added to your policy until you approve it.

Your lists and rules