Email Triage
Scan your IMAP inbox, classify emails into priority categories, and surface the ones that need attention. Uses a local LLM (Ollama) for intelligent classification with a rule-based heuristic fallback when Ollama is unavailable.
Prerequisites
- Python 3.10+
- IMAP-accessible email account (Gmail, Fastmail, self-hosted, etc.)
- Ollama (optional) — for AI-powered classification. Without it, the script uses keyword-based heuristics that still work well for common patterns.
Categories
| Icon | Category | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 🔴 | urgent | Outages, security alerts, legal, payment failures, time-critical |
| 🟡 | needs-response | Business inquiries, questions, action items requiring a reply |
| 🔵 | informational | Receipts, confirmations, newsletters, automated notifications |
| ⚫ | spam | Marketing, promotions, unsolicited junk |
Configuration
All configuration is via environment variables:
| Variable | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
IMAP_HOST | ✅ | — | IMAP server hostname |
IMAP_PORT | — | 993 | IMAP port (SSL) |
IMAP_USER | ✅ | — | IMAP username / email address |
IMAP_PASS | ✅ | — | IMAP password or app-specific password |
EMAIL_TRIAGE_STATE | — | ./data/email-triage.json | Path to the JSON state file |
OLLAMA_URL | — | http://127.0.0.1:11434 | Ollama API endpoint |
OLLAMA_MODEL | — | qwen2.5:7b | Ollama model for classification |
Directories Written
EMAIL_TRIAGE_STATE(default:./data/email-triage.json) — Persistent state file tracking classified emails and surfacing status
Commands
# Scan inbox and classify new unread emails
python3 scripts/email/email-triage.py scan
# Scan with verbose output (shows each classification)
python3 scripts/email/email-triage.py scan --verbose
# Dry run — scan and classify but don't save state
python3 scripts/email/email-triage.py scan --dry-run
# Show unsurfaced important emails (urgent + needs-response)
python3 scripts/email/email-triage.py report
# Same as report but JSON output (for programmatic use)
python3 scripts/email/email-triage.py report --json
# Mark reported emails as surfaced (so they don't appear again)
python3 scripts/email/email-triage.py mark-surfaced
# Show triage statistics
python3 scripts/email/email-triage.py stats
How It Works
- Connects to IMAP over SSL and fetches unread messages (up to 20 per scan).
- Deduplicates by Message-ID (or a hash of subject + sender as fallback) so emails are never classified twice.
- Classifies each email using Ollama if available, otherwise falls back to keyword heuristics.
- Stores state in a local JSON file — tracks category, reason, and whether the email has been surfaced.
reportsurfaces only unsurfaced urgent and needs-response emails, sorted by priority.mark-surfacedflags reported emails so they won't appear in future reports.- Auto-prunes state to the most recent 200 entries to prevent unbounded growth.
Integration Tips
- Heartbeat / cron: Run
scanperiodically, thenreport --jsonto check for items needing attention. - Agent workflow:
scan→report --json→ act on results →mark-surfaced. - Without Ollama: The heuristic classifier handles common patterns (automated notifications, marketing, urgent keywords) well. Ollama adds nuance for ambiguous emails.
- App passwords: If your provider uses 2FA, generate an app-specific password for IMAP access.