Canary Mail uses AI to tame your inbox Here’s how

Have you ever returned from a glorious period of PTO to an incredible amount of emails overwhelming your inbox… and your brain? To try to put an end to the cyclical nature of doom and anxiety, I looked for a tool or application to support my digitally-turned-mental state of clutter.

Canary Mail offers an artificial intelligence-based email copilot, backed by ChatGPT maker OpenAI and an enterprise AI company Coherencein collaboration with the open-source language platform Hugging face. Founded in 2015 by brothers Sohel Sanghani And Developer Sanghaniand supported by Sequoia Capitalthe downloadable email assistant is available on Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS.

Named after the cautionary metaphor “canary in a coal mine,” Canary Mail’s key features include the ability to compose emails, surface emails that need attention, silence spam, and aggregate email threads in list format, while proactively alerting users to threats. (My inbox needed all of the above.)

How to use Canary Mail to track your inbox

Step 1: Once Canary Mail is downloaded to your phone or computer, click on the application and create an account. There is an option to upgrade your subscription to $3/month ($36/year) or try Canary Mail free for seven days.

Step 2: A tutorial will then appear with information on how to navigate the tool and use it to compose email responses with a certain context or tone.

Step 3: Click the “Write Email” button, which will reveal your inbox, now integrated into the Canary Mail app. (You will receive a welcome email from the company shortly afterwards.)

Step 4: Your inbox will have a slightly different look. In response to my MacOS download and integration, my inbox is separated by labels on the left side of the screen: All, For you, Team And Needs an answer.

Step 5: There’s one on the right Warnings area and an AI-powered assistant underneath for actionable prompts. Regardless of their label, all emails have an AI summary option available. I found this useful for long discussions and their equally long processes. The summary is visible once you navigate to the thread, serving as a reminder of project status without having to scroll through your inbox. Every email below Needs an answer will provide AI-generated answers according to the context and tone of the thread, labeled as Quick answer.

Canary Mail’s organizational style allows for additional interactions within each thread; you can like or save contacts details from the email, use AI to reply to an email Warnor navigate to the top of the app and select Bulk cleaning to identify unimportant emails.

Additionally, Canary Mail features its own text formatting editor, allowing you to adjust text style, color, and alignment. Each message thread mimics Apple’s “dark mode,” and you can also snooze or pin emails, similar to iOS’s messaging interface.

Canary Mail and its competitors

Canary Mail is one of the oldest email options offering AI-powered assistants and copilots; it was launched in 2016 after competitors Superhuman and Proton post. (The shift to AI is fairly recent, following a partnership with OpenAI in 2023.) Other competitors include Spark (2015), Shortwave (2022), Gemini for Gmail (2023) and Proton Scribe (2024). Canary Mail is also the cheapest, especially compared to those that don’t offer a free trial.

Its privacy-focused security can make it particularly attractive. To protect user privacy, Canary Mail includes a multi-layered AI-powered threat detection and threat analysis system designed to block data infiltration and phishing attempts. It also offers end-to-end encryption and control over who has access to your email metadata.

In addition to the ability to integrate with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, iCloud, and AOL, Canary Mail can provide a digital reprieve as you navigate that flood of emails, and the percentage of them that are spam or a potential threat.

It’s something to think about before you head out for your next much-needed PTO.