Your day, wherever you read

One system for scheduled work

Otto used to keep scheduled work in two places: a morning brief with its own settings, and recurring digests called automations. They are now one thing, routines. The morning brief, inbox digests, follow-up roundups and, for team admins, the team digest and weekly plan all run the same way.

Pick a schedule the way you would say it: daily at a time, on chosen days of the week, every few hours, or any cron expression. A run fires at the minute you set. What a plan allows is the shortest gap between runs: daily on Free, hourly on Plus and every 15 minutes on Pro.

Conditions, and a note when there is nothing new

A routine can look only at mail that arrived since its last run, rank by importance, and skip anything it already showed you, so a Friday roundup stops repeating Tuesday.

If a run finds nothing, you still get a short line: "Nothing new since" the last run. It arrives at low priority, so push and quiet settings keep it quiet, and it is recorded in the routine's history. An empty morning and a broken morning no longer look the same.

One brief for every mailbox

The brief and digest routines read all of your connected mailboxes by default and label each section by mailbox. In a chat that only approves some of them, the rest collapse to a line such as "+2 from other mailboxes, open in Otto". The in-app and email versions always have the whole picture.

Delivered where you read

Each routine sends to a set of places: Otto's Activity feed, email, push and a connected chat app. Telegram, Slack and Discord work today. WhatsApp, Google Chat and Microsoft Teams are coming soon.

Long updates are split into a few messages with numbered items, so you can refer to one. If there is still more, the last message says how many items are left and points you to Otto.

Chat messages wait out quiet hours, 22:00 to 07:00 by default in the routine's time zone, and arrive when the window ends. You can change or remove the window on each routine's card. Otto's feed, email and push are never held.

Plans differ on chat. Free delivers to Otto, email and push. Plus connects 1 chat app and sends a routine to up to 2 chat destinations. Pro connects up to 6 chat apps, with up to 4 destinations per routine. Otto, email and push never count against those limits.

If a chat app is disconnected or revoked, delivery to it is skipped instead of failing. The routine card shows a Reconnect link, Otto posts a single notice in the app, and once you reconnect, delivery picks up again with nothing to reconfigure. Missed updates are not sent late, but you can ask for the latest one. Each routine also shows its last delivery per destination: delivered, could not send or disconnected.

Ask from the chat, and act on what arrives

In a linked Telegram, Slack or Discord chat, say "brief today" and Otto answers with your latest brief, or builds a live snapshot from your calendar, tasks and important mail if the last one is old. You can also list your routines, pause or resume one, run one now, skip the next run, change its schedule, or create a new one by describing it. A new routine that only delivers to that chat asks you to confirm there. Anything that emails other people or posts elsewhere opens in Otto for review.

An update stays actionable for 48 hours. Reply "archive 1, 3", "mark read", "mute 2h" or "stop these updates". Say "reply to #2" and Otto drafts the reply for you to review, because sending still needs your approval.

Start a routine when something happens

On Plus and Pro, a routine can start from an event instead of a clock: when mail arrives from a sender, with a label or a keyword; a set number of minutes before a meeting on your Google or Outlook calendar; or when a follow-up reminder fires. Switch them on from the routine's card in Settings, or just ask Otto. Each trigger runs up to 24 times a day on Plus and 96 on Pro. Free has scheduled routines only.

What happens to my existing automations

They are routines now. Each one keeps its schedule and its history, and there is nothing for you to do. Your morning brief is still there, with its time and destinations in Settings → Alerts. The same Settings → Automations tab holds your filters, rules and cleanups.

What routines do not do

A routine reads and reports. It does not send mail on its own, and chat does not loosen that: a reply drafted from a message in Slack still waits for you to approve it. Briefs are summaries of the mail you allowed Otto to read, so open the thread for anything critical.

That is the point of the change. Delegate your day. Read the result where you already are, and decide in a minute what used to take twenty.

Start with the routines guide. The chat guide covers asking and acting from Telegram, Slack and Discord, and delivery troubleshooting covers a brief that does not arrive. See pricing for the limits on each plan, or open Otto and set one up.