Delegate your day.
The Otto Mail blog
Short, opinionated pieces on getting your day back: routines, approval, two providers, and what we store.
You just approve.
The short version
- Practical routines for an inbox that is really a queue of decisions.
- What to check before you approve an AI send, delete or bulk change.
- How to run Gmail and Outlook together without sending from the wrong address.
Schedule a meeting over email without the back-and-forth
Most scheduling threads run long because the first email asks a question instead of offering an answer. Offer the times.
4 min readTurn emails into tasks
"I'll get that to you Friday." You wrote it in an email on Tuesday and nothing else knows. Move the promise out of the thread.
4 min readFind an old Gmail email when you forget the sender
You do not need the sender. Search by a word, a rough date, an attachment or a size and narrow from there.
4 min readA 10-minute morning email routine
Open the inbox at 8:55 and be done by 9:05. Four moves, a brief to start and a clear place to stop.
5 min readStop newsletter clutter without unsubscribing from everything
You do not have to unsubscribe from everything. Sort newsletters out of the way, keep the ones you read and unsubscribe from the ones you do not.
4 min readYour day, wherever you read
Otto's scheduled work is now one system: routines. They run when you say, tell you when there is nothing new, and arrive in the place you already look.
4 min readEight keys to clear an inbox
You do not need forty shortcuts. You need about eight, and a pass that never asks your hand to leave the keyboard.
4 min readHow to follow up on an email without annoying anyone
A good follow-up makes the reply easier than ignoring you. Here is how to write one, and when to let it go.
4 min readBuild a Gmail filter you can check first
Most filter mistakes are guesses. A live preview turns the guess into something you can read before it touches your mail.
4 min readBest AI email assistants: how to choose
Eight AI email assistants, what each one is good at, and the question that settles the choice. Otto is ours, so we say where it does not fit.
5 min readAn AI email assistant that asks first
Any model can write a polite reply. The question that matters is who decides when it leaves your mailbox.
5 min readWrite a note together, from your inbox
A note is more useful once someone else can read it, and better once they can add to it. Otto now lets you write a note together, live, or send it out by email or link.
3 min readAI that waits for your approval
The frightening part of AI email is not the drafting. It is the send button, and who is allowed to press it.
3 min readInbox overload for founders
You do not have an email problem. You have three hundred decisions in a queue that pretends they are all the same size.
4 min readGmail and Outlook in one place
Running Gmail and Microsoft 365 side by side means two inboxes, two calendars, two sets of habits. It need not mean two apps.
3 min readWhat Otto stores
Otto stores message details for its inbox list. Chats, notes, drafts and prepared work have different records, so the details matter.
2 min readTry your next step in Otto
Core mail, calendar and tasks are free. AI has an allowance.
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