Connect Fireflies Email Assistant to Your Inbox

Email Assistant helps you organize your inbox, prepare AI-powered draft replies, and stay on top of follow-ups. After setup, it works quietly in the background while you stay in control of every email. You review, edit, and send all drafts manually.

In this guide, you'll learn how to:

• Connect Email Assistant to your email account

• Configure Auto Draft, Follow-ups, Email Sorting, and Writing Instructions

• Customize Email Assistant settings

• Troubleshoot common setup issues

Let’s get started 🚀

🔍 What you can do with Email Assistant

Email Assistant helps you manage your inbox with three core capabilities:

• Email Sorting: Automatically categorizes new emails with labels such as Needs Action, Read Only, and Conversations to help you prioritize your inbox.

• Auto Draft: Prepares draft replies for emails that need a response. You review, edit, and send every draft manually.

• Follow-ups: Prepares follow-up drafts for emails you've sent when no reply is received after the selected waiting period.

Email Assistant works in the background inside your inbox and uses the context available in your emails and Fireflies meetings to generate more relevant drafts.

🔑 Prerequisites

Before connecting Email Assistant, ensure you have:

• A Gmail or Outlook account - The inbox you want Email Assistant to manage

• Account access - Permission to sign in and authorize third-party access

• A Fireflies account - Active account with available AI credits

Once you have these requirements in place, you're ready to connect your inbox.

🔗 Enable Fireflies Email Assistant

Step 1: Log in to your Fireflies account and navigate to Settings page.

Step 2: Under the Personal tab, click Email Assistant from the left sidebar.

Step 3: Click Connect.

Step 4: Review the permissions requested by Fireflies.ai, then click Continue to grant access to your Google or Outlook Account.

Step 5: After connecting your inbox, a one-time onboarding walkthrough will introduce the main Email Assistant features, including:

• Auto Draft

• Email Sorting

• Follow-up Drafts

Click Continue to go through the walkthrough, or click the ✕ in the top-right corner to skip it. You can change these settings later from the Email Assistant settings page.

⚙ Configure Email Assistant Settings

Email Assistant settings control how drafts are created and how emails are organized in your inbox. All settings are optional and can be updated at any time.

To edit a setting, click Customize on the Email Assistant dashboard.

Use the toggles to enable or disable each feature. The following options can be configured:

• Auto Draft – Automatically creates reply drafts for incoming emails based on your preferences.

• Follow-ups – Creates follow-up drafts for emails you’ve already sent if there’s no response within the selected timeframe.

• Writing Style - Defines tone, formality, and structure of draft replies

• Email Sorting - Applies labels to organize and prioritize emails

✉ Auto Draft Settings

Auto Draft automatically prepares reply drafts for incoming emails. Drafts appear in your inbox for review, where you edit and send them manually.

Choose which emails receive drafts

Select the types of emails that should trigger draft creation:

• Important emails only - Drafts created only for emails marked as important by your email provider

• Likely needs a reply - Uses AI signals to detect emails that typically require responses

• Most conversations - Drafts created for most email threads

• All emails - Drafts created for every incoming email

🔁 Auto Follow-up Settings

Auto Follow-up prepares draft follow-ups when emails you've sent don't receive a response within a selected waiting period.

Enable or disable follow-ups

Toggle Auto Follow-up on or off at any time. When enabled, follow-up drafts appear in the original email thread after the waiting period expires.

Set the waiting period

Choose how long to wait before a follow-up draft is created:

• 1 day - Follow-up draft created 24 hours after sending

• 2 days - Follow-up draft created 48 hours after sending

• 3 days - Follow-up draft created 72 hours after sending

• 1 week - Follow-up draft created 7 days after sending

✍ Writing Instructions

Writing Instructions let you define how Email Assistant writes future draft replies and follow-up drafts. Customize these settings to ensure drafts match your communication preferences.

You can specify things like:

• Tone - Professional, neutral, or friendly

• Formality level - Formal, neutral, or casual

• Greetings - How emails begin (e.g., "Hi [Name]," "Hello," "Dear [Name]")

• Sign-offs - How emails end (e.g., "Best," "Thanks," "Regards")

• Sentence structure - Concise and direct, or detailed and explanatory

• Special preferences - Emoji usage, exclamation marks, paragraph length

Example: Use this template as a starting point:

Start with greetings like:
"Hi,"
"Hi @Name,"
Optionally add:
"I hope you're doing well."

Keep replies concise (1–3 sentences).

Use phrases like:
"This is a follow-up email,"
"As I quoted earlier,"
"Looking forward to your response."

End with:
"Thank you,"
or
"Warm Regards,"
(optionally followed by "Muze").

Avoid emojis unless requested.

Example 1:
Hi Sepi, I hope you are having a great day so far. I understand the concerns you have raised and I can resonate with your perspective. However, I would request you please review the request again because it would help me a lot. Looking forward to your response.

Warm Regards
Muze

After updating your preferences, click Apply Style to apply changes to all future drafts.

📂 Email (Inbox) Sorting

Email Sorting automatically categorizes new emails by applying labels based on their content and intent. This helps you quickly identify which emails need attention and prioritize your inbox.

Use the Auto Label toggle to enable or disable automatic email labeling.

When enabled, Fireflies applies labels such as:

• Needs Action – Emails that require your attention or a response.

• Read Only – Informational emails that don't require action.

• Conversations – Ongoing email discussions.

• System Alerts – Automated notifications and system-generated emails.

• Schedule – Calendar invites and scheduling-related emails.

• Pending – Emails awaiting a response or next step.

• Done – Completed conversations that no longer require action.

• Promotions – Marketing and promotional emails.

Once you've finished configuring your preferences, click Save Changes to apply them.

👀 What you'll see after connecting

Once Email Assistant is connected and configured, you'll notice these changes across Fireflies and your inbox:

• Email labels: New incoming emails are automatically labeled (such as Needs Action, Read Only, Conversations, and Schedule) to help you organize and prioritize your inbox.

  

• Draft replies: For emails that match your Auto Draft settings, Fireflies prepares draft replies directly in the same email thread. You review, edit, or delete them before sending.

  

• Follow-up drafts: When Follow-ups is enabled, Fireflies prepares reminder drafts for emails you've sent that haven't received a reply within the selected timeframe.

  

• Daily Brief: If you use Daily Brief, important emails from the last 24 hours, email tasks, and action items can appear alongside meeting and Slack insights (if Slack is connected), giving you a single place to review your priorities.

  📘 Learn more: Daily Brief – Get a summary of all your meetings in one place.

  

• AskFred: Ask questions about your connected inbox using natural language. You can summarize recent emails, identify pending tasks, or draft replies and new emails. All drafts are saved to your inbox for you to review, edit, and send manually.

  📘 Learn more: Global AskFred – Get answers from past meetings, connected apps, and web search.

  

📊 View your Email Assistant activity

After saving your settings, you'll return to the Email Assistant page, where you can monitor how Email Assistant is working.

Here you'll find:

• Time saved estimate– An estimate of the time saved using Email Assistant.

• Activity summary – View the number of Auto-drafts generated, Follow-ups flagged, and Emails sorted during the selected time period.

• Automation controls – Quickly turn Auto Draft and Auto Label on or off.

• Customize – Click Customize to update your Email Assistant settings at any time.

• Open Inbox – Opens your connected inbox so you can review drafts and labeled emails.

This keeps the user informed about Email Assistant activity and provides quick access to manage their settings.

❌ Disconnect Email Assistant

If you no longer want to use Email Assistant — for example, if you decide to stop using drafts or labels — you can disconnect it at any time.

Go to Settings → Email Assistant, click the 3 dot menu (...) and select Disconnect.

This immediately stops Email Assistant from preparing drafts and applying labels.

✅ Important to know

• Drafts are never sent automatically.

• Every draft is created for you, but you need to review it, make any edits, and send it manually.

• Email Assistant works in the background inside your inbox.

• All features are optional and fully configurable.

• You can disconnect Email Assistant anytime from Settings if you choose to stop using it.

🛠 Troubleshooting

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Does Email Assistant send emails automatically?
No. Drafts are never sent automatically. You always review, edit, and send them yourself.

Q2. Where do draft replies appear?
Draft replies appear directly in your inbox, within the same email thread.

Q3. Can I turn Auto Draft or Email Sorting off later?
Yes. You can turn Auto Draft, Follow-ups, or Email Sorting on or off at any time from the Email Assistant settings page.

Q4. What's the difference between Auto Draft and Follow-ups?

• Auto Draft prepares replies for incoming emails.

• Follow-ups prepare draft follow-up emails for messages you've already sent when no reply is received after the selected waiting period.

Q5. Will Email Assistant override my existing inbox rules?
No. Your existing inbox rules still apply. Email Sorting automatically applies labels to new emails when enabled.

Q6. Can I change the writing style later?
Yes. You can update your Writing Instructions at any time. Future drafts will use your latest preferences.

Q7. What happens if I disconnect Email Assistant?
Disconnecting Email Assistant stops new draft replies, follow-up drafts, and email labels from being created. Your existing emails and drafts remain unchanged, and you can reconnect at any time.

🔄 Recap

Fireflies Email Assistant helps you stay on top of your inbox without changing how you work. After connecting, you can:

• Organize new emails automatically with labels.

• Review AI-generated draft replies and follow-up drafts before sending.

• Customize Auto Draft, Follow-ups, Writing Instructions, and Email Sorting.

• View important email tasks in Daily Brief.

• Use AskFred to search your inbox, summarize emails, and create email drafts.

• The Auto Draft function uses AI credits, which are charged dynamically based on the task performed.

• Update your settings or disconnect Email Assistant at any time.

📚 Related Guides

• Learn about the Fireflies Slack Assistant — Your AI teammate for smarter, faster collaboration.

• How to Purchase AI Credits — Step-by-step on how to buy extra AI credits when your team needs more.

• Privacy Policy - Data handling and security practices

• Daily Brief – Get a summary of all your meetings in one place

• Global AskFred – Get answers from past meetings, connected apps, and web search