Email Categorization Guide
Overview
Ellie's email categorization feature uses AI to automatically organize your incoming emails into meaningful categories. This helps you quickly identify which emails need your attention and which are purely informational.
How Email Categorization Works
1. AI-Powered Classification
When you receive new emails, Ellie's AI analyzes:
- Subject line - Looking for keywords and patterns
- Email content - Understanding the context and intent
- Sender information - Recognizing if it's from a person, service, or system
- Recipient context - Whether you're in TO, CC, or BCC fields
- FYI indicators - Detecting phrases like "for your information" or "everyone else FYI"
2. Category Types
Ellie uses different category types that control behavior:
Reply Required 🔄
- Purpose: Emails that need a direct response
- Examples: Questions, meeting invites, requests for information
- Behavior: Automatically generates draft replies (if auto-drafts enabled)
- Default category: "to respond"
Informational 📋
- Purpose: Emails shared for awareness only
- Examples: Status updates, announcements, reports, newsletters
- Behavior: No auto-drafts generated
- Default categories: "fyi", "notification", "marketing", "other"
Action Required ⚡
- Purpose: Emails requiring action other than a reply
- Examples: Forms to complete, reviews to leave, tasks to finish
- Behavior: No auto-drafts generated
- Default category: "action required"
3. Categorization Process
- Email arrives in your inbox
- AI analyzes content and context
- Category assigned based on analysis
- Email tagged with appropriate category in your email client
- Auto-actions triggered (like draft creation for reply-required emails)
Setting Up Categorization
Enable Auto-Categorization
- Go to Settings → Email Accounts
- Select your email account
- Toggle "Apply categories automatically" to ON
- Ensure you have categories created (see below)
Managing Categories
Creating Custom Categories
- Navigate to Settings → Categories
- Click "Add Category"
- Fill in:
- Name: Display name for the category
- Description: What emails should be categorized here
- Color: Visual identifier
- Type: Choose behavior (Reply Required, Informational, Action Required)
- Save your category
Editing Existing Categories
- You can modify name, description, color, and type
- Changes apply to future emails only
- Previously categorized emails keep their original category
Default Categories
Ellie comes with these default categories:
- to respond (Reply Required) - Questions and requests
- fyi (Informational) - Status updates and announcements
- notification (Informational) - System alerts and confirmations
- marketing (Informational) - Promotional emails
- action required (Action Required) - Tasks and action items
- other (Informational) - Miscellaneous emails
Advanced Features
FYI Detection
Ellie automatically detects when you're CC'd on emails that contain FYI language:
- Phrases like "(everyone else FYI)" or "for your information"
- When you're in the CC field rather than TO field
- These emails are categorized as Informational to prevent unnecessary draft generation
Provider Integration
Categories sync with your email provider:
- Gmail: Creates corresponding labels
- Outlook: Creates corresponding categories with colors