Sort Your Apple Mails with GPT

As a developer, my inbox is my lifeline – and a constant source of headaches. I'm drowning in emails, and frankly, I'm tired of manually sorting through the chaos. I rely heavily on the Apple ecosystem, and while Apple's AI features are slowly improving, they haven't made a dent in my Mail situation yet. It's been over two years since generative AI took the world by storm, and it's frustrating that something as basic as intelligent email categorization is still missing in action.

So, I decided to leverage the power of GPT-4, particularly the cost-effective gpt-4o-mini model, to automatically categorize and flag my incoming emails right within Apple Mail. This tutorial will walk you through how I created an Apple Mail rule that triggers a custom script, utilizing GPT to determine the appropriate category (flag) for each email.

The result? A significantly more organized inbox, less time wasted on manual triage, and the peace of mind that comes with knowing my data stays under my control.

Do you want to sort your emails with a private model instead? Check out from OpenAI's platform
## Setup Instructions

1. Create the AppleScript File

Create a new file named flag-gpt.scpt in your Mail scripts directory:

~/Library/Application\ Scripts/com.apple.mail/flag-gpt.scpt

2. Add the Script Content

Copy the

Configure Email Categories

Configure your email categories by modifying this line:

set colorCategories to { {"Blue", "<CATEGORY1>"}, {"Purple","<CATEGORY2>"}, {"Grey","<CATEGORY3>"}}

Important: Testing and Application

• Do NOT apply the rule to all existing emails


• To test: Select a single email and click "Apply Rule"


• The flagging will only be applied to the selected email


• Check the log file to verify the response and categorization

If all goes well, a few seconds later you should be able to see the flag set for the selected email, if applicable. All new emails will be automatically flagged.

Troubleshooting

If emails aren't being flagged:

1. Verify your OpenAI API key is correct and has sufficient credits


2. Check the log file for API errors or rate limiting


3. Verify script execution permissions


4. Test the rule manually on individual emails


5. Check your Python installation

Tip: Remember to restart Mail after making changes to the script or rules.

Please also note that if there is a syntax error in the script, Apple Mail will simply do nothing. To see potential errors, simply copy and paste the script into the "Script Editor" and run it.

Tips

• Test the rule with individual sample emails first


• Monitor the log file to understand AI categorization


• Adjust the prompt if categorization needs tuning


• Consider using different GPT models based on your needs


• Keep an eye on your API usage and costs

Wrap-UP

And there you have it! We've walked through a practical solution to a common problem: email overload. By harnessing the power of GPT and a bit of AppleScript magic, we've built a system that intelligently categorizes and flags our emails directly within Apple Mail, all while keeping our data private and under our control.