Mail alerts and the Chrome extension

What it does

• Alerts: in Settings → Mail → Send alerts for, choose Important mail (the default; the model decides what matters), All new mail or Nothing. Each alert is a one-line summary in Chinese, sent to the chat named in Send alerts to. That chat must be your other WeChat account: the app checks its WeChat ID before every alert.
• Reply drafts (Gmail only): answer an alert with something like “tell him Wednesday afternoon works” and it writes a reply as a draft in Gmail, then shows you the text. It never clicks Send.
• Questions about mail: ask “anything important today?” and it lists recent mail.
• Outlook: alerts only, no drafts.

What it reads, and what it doesn't

The extension reads only the unread rows of your inbox list: sender, address, subject, preview, time and an id. It never opens a message body. The extension hands that only to Meow on your Mac (at 127.0.0.1), which sends the sender, subject and preview to the model provider you chose, to ask whether it matters. We receive no mail data at all.

Setting it up

In the setup window's Mail step, or in Settings → Mail, in order:

1. Add the extension to ChromeClick Show Folder to find the extension's folder. In Chrome, open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode at the top right, and drag the folder onto the page.
2. Connect it to MeowClick Connect. A Chrome tab opens and pairs the two; when it says Paired, you're done.
3. Keep your inboxes openClick Open Inboxes for Gmail and Outlook on the web, then right-click each tab and pin it so it stays open. Outlook starts loading its list once you've clicked its tab.

Limits

• Chrome only, with Gmail and Outlook on the web (outlook.live.com, outlook.office.com).
• Mail alerts on Windows are untested.
• Mail that arrives while Meow is stopped is alerted all at once when it starts.
• Alerts and drafts go through your other WeChat account: add it in Settings → You first (how).