I built a local AI to filter my email so I'd never have to open Gmail again, but I still do

12 Sep 2026, 15:30 by Nimrod Aldea · Android Police

I don't like email. While it's better than snail mail (faster and more efficient), it never solved the main problem with mail: almost nothing good or interesting ever comes in it.

Our physical mailboxes now contain only bills and leaflets, and our electronic mailboxes contain only work- or school-related mail and an unholy amount of virtual leaflets we affectionately call "spam."

If there ever was a place where I wished for AI features, it was my inbox. That thing overflows with read and unread messages. It's divided into filters that have been there so long that I forgot which mail goes where and why.

And there is so much reading. I just woke up. I don't want to read a page and a half from the school principal saying nothing to anyone in particular.

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By Ben Khalesi

Building a life center, not a better inbox

One job: Tell me what actually needs me

So I built my own mail client, not as a replacement for Gmail, but as a way to make sure I know what needs me and what doesn't. I know Gemini now lives in my inbox. I'll explain later why that doesn't help me.

First thing I need to make clear: I didn't build a more organized inbox; I built a "life center" with one job: let me know if anything in my life needs my action.

That email from the school principal? No need for me to do anything about it; no need for me to even read it. An email about a payment that entered my bank account? Need to know; no need to act. My boss asking if I could meet on Tuesday? Absolutely needs my attention.

My AI's job is to read everything coming in and tell me the bottom line. It doesn't open the email for me to read. It lets me know what needs me right now.

Gmail's new job: sorting spam into smarter piles

There's more than one kind of spam

My email address is still @gmail.com, but the Gmail app has been politely delegated to function as a glorified spam filter, this time not only for actual spam.

I have several layers of "spam" in my eyes. There's the obvious Nigerian-prince-style spam, but there's also the LinkedIn spam, the Substack spam, the eyewear store I visited five years ago spam, and the "school is celebrating Earth Day" spam.

Those are versions of "I don't really need to read this," and Gmail's job now is to sort them into different spam piles.

My AI knows which piles are a waste of time and which ones could hold valuable information.

It doesn't need to read a 15-page digest of Substack newsletters or 15 LinkedIn messages about other people telling everyone how great they are at business.

However, it reads every school email to see whether it contains important information.

Google files everything by keyword, and my AI reads only the mail I should be reading.

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What it actually looks like

One sentence, then a reply window

What I get is one sentence: a clear "Your boss asked if you can meet on Tuesday." That's it, only the bottom line. And that's the biggest difference between my personal AI, Mira, and the built-in AI that lives in my inbox.

Gemini doesn't give you the bottom line; it summarizes the entire email. That's by design. It's not supposed to make decisions on your behalf. It only saves you a little bit of time.

A Gemini summary might look like this: "Your boss wished you a happy Fourth of July, joked about not eating too much at the family BBQ, and then asked if you can meet on Tuesday. Would you like me to reply and add it to your calendar?"

I'm not saying that's a bad summary. It's very helpful, and I am sure it works for most people. But it will do the same summary for each email in my inbox.

My goal wasn't to spend less time in my inbox. It was to bypass it altogether. And that is what a local AI can do: let me avoid logging into my email.

The trust problem, and why it's still there

Five days in, and I still double-check

Which brings me to trust issues. This was a weekend project. I am not trying to launch a Gmail alternative. I'm trying to cut through the noise and have my local AI help me organize my personal life.

I admit I haven't tested it enough yet. It's only been about five days of this new way of handling mail, and I've spent those days routinely checking my Gmail inbox to see whether Mira missed anything, because trust is earned over time, and not enough time has passed.

I also do not allow her to answer for me. She says, "Your boss asked if you can meet Tuesday," and when I click that message, I get to the email summary, similar to what Gemini offers, and from there I can press Reply to write a reply to my boss or click Draft to have Mira write a reply for me.

The Send button is still mine, and will probably stay that way for a long time.

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It's working so far

The part that surprised me

So far, it's working great. Gmail receives all the mail, throws out the actual spam, and organizes the rest into neat little piles.

Whenever an email hits one of the predetermined piles, my AI reads it, understands it, and lets me know when one needs my attention.

This runs on a tiny local model (Gemma4: e4b) that I wouldn't trust with more complicated tasks, but for this task, it seems to be doing a great job.

It understands the context of the email in relation to the rest of the thread and follows who said what to whom. It also surfaces older emails, saying something like "You promised to reply, and that was three days ago. Want to respond now?" which is genuinely useful.

Am I saying that it's time to delete your Gmail account?

Absolutely not. This project wouldn't have been possible without Google providing me with a free, trusted email address that can hold practically every email I have ever received.

Gmail is the foundation that lets my small, local AI model understand what mail needs my attention and what can be discarded. Gmail provides me with several layers of intelligent housekeeping before my AI can swoop in and say, "Ah yes, this is important."

Also, my Gmail is synced with my calendar, which allows for context-related scheduling. Gmail understands that if my boss writes "Can you do next Tuesday at 8 am?" it should ask me if I want to add that to my calendar, and then add it automatically.

That is a very useful feature, and I think I will steal that one next.