MailBeaver help

MailBeaver reads your Gmail every morning and gives you a short brief of what matters, then helps you clear out the rest. This guide covers setting it up, every part of it, and what to do when something goes wrong.

Can't find your answer? Email hello@hummingbits.com.

Getting started

Setup takes about five minutes. After you install MailBeaver, its dashboard opens with three steps.

1. Choose your AI

MailBeaver uses an AI to sort and summarize your email, with your own API key. Pick one provider:

1. Create a key on the provider's site and copy it.
2. In MailBeaver, pick the provider, paste the key, and click Check key & save.

Your key stays in your browser. Only each email's sender, subject and a short preview are sent to the provider, never the full email. Not sure which to pick? Start with Gemini: it's free for a normal inbox.

2. Connect Gmail

1. Click Connect a Gmail account and choose your Google account.
2. Google asks you to allow MailBeaver to "view and modify but not delete your email". Click Allow. MailBeaver can't permanently delete anything: it only moves mail to Trash, where you can restore it for 30 days.

You can connect more accounts later with Add Gmail account in Settings › Accounts (one on Free, up to five on Pro), and switch between them with the menu at the top.

3. Your first brief

Click Run my first brief now. It takes a minute or two. After that, MailBeaver writes a new brief every morning at 7:00 (you can change the hour) and shows a notification when it's ready. Chrome needs to be open for this.

The Brief

The Brief is the first page. At the top, the TL;DR sums up the last 24 hours in a few lines. The arrows next to the date step back through earlier briefs.

Your email is grouped into:

• Needs your attention: real people, money, security alerts, travel, appointments.
• Actions and replies: things you need to do, each with a suggested Next step.
• Everything else: newsletters, promotions and notifications.

Use the buttons above the list to show just one group, and Hide handled to hide emails you've already dealt with.

Buttons on each email

Every action shows Undo for a few seconds. If you only want the buttons to show when you point at an email, turn on Settings › Accessibility and display › Show row buttons only on hover.

To act on several emails at once, tick their boxes and use the bar that appears.

Add to calendar (Pro)

When an email mentions a meeting, appointment, flight or deadline, it shows Event found. Click Add to calendar…:

1. Check the title, date and time. They're filled in from the email.
2. Choose who to invite: Only me, Everyone on the email, or Choose people. You can add other addresses too.
3. Click the button at the bottom. Google Calendar opens with the event filled in; click Save there.

MailBeaver doesn't need access to your calendar for this: nothing is saved until you click Save in Google Calendar.

Add task (Pro)

Click Add task on an email to make a task in Google Tasks, with a due date and a link back to the email. It shows up in Gmail, Google Calendar and the Tasks app on your phone. The first time, MailBeaver asks for permission to use Google Tasks. You can also have MailBeaver notify you at a set time.

Tasks

Tasks shows everything that needs you later, grouped by when it's due:

• Google Tasks you added from an email. Tick one here and it's ticked in Google too.
• Bills and deadlines found in your briefs (Pro), with a reminder 2 days before.
• Waiting for a reply: emails you sent that nobody has answered after 3 days (Pro).
• Snoozed emails and reminders.

To-dos that close themselves

When a later email shows something is finished, such as a payment receipt or "your renewal is complete", MailBeaver ticks off the matching task, bill or reminder for you. You'll see Marked done on that email, and the item under Done automatically in Tasks, each with Undo. Bills also have a Mark done button. To turn this off, untick Settings › Finished to-dos.

Clean up

Everything MailBeaver removes goes to Gmail's Trash, where you can restore it for 30 days. Starred mail, and senders you choose to keep, are never touched.

• Suggestions: emails MailBeaver thinks you'd delete, with how sure it is. Use the buttons on each row, or tick several and click Move selected to Trash.
• Senders: who sends you the most mail. Click Scan, then for each sender: Keep, Mark all read, Unsubscribe, Block (cleans up their future mail) or Move all to Trash. Point at a button to see what it does.
• Large mail (Pro): big emails and attachments taking up your storage.
• History: everything MailBeaver cleaned up, with Undo.

MailBeaver learns from what you keep and delete. The more you use the buttons, the better its suggestions get.

Cleanup mode (Settings › Brief and cleanup) controls how far it goes:

• suggest (the default): MailBeaver proposes, you approve.
• auto (Pro): after each brief, mail it's very sure about goes to Trash on its own. Try it after a week or two of suggest.
• off: no suggestions.

Rules

Rules run every 15 minutes while Chrome is open. Build one as a sentence: pick what to match (sender, sender's domain, subject, or a Gmail search), what to do (mark as read, archive, move to Trash, or star) and when. Click Show matches to see what it would catch before you save it.

On Pro, you can also type a rule in plain English, such as "Trash OTP emails after 7 days".

Senders on the Rules page lists everyone you've blocked or chosen to keep. That's where you unblock a sender.

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? in MailBeaver for the full list. Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) or / to search your brief or jump anywhere.

You can turn single-key shortcuts off in Settings › Accessibility and display. ⌘K always works.

Accessibility and display

MailBeaver works with a keyboard alone and with screen readers. In Settings › Accessibility and display you can choose a light, dark or system theme, a compact layout, and how long Undo stays on screen.

You can also open MailBeaver in Chrome's side panel, next to Gmail: click the side panel button in Chrome's toolbar and choose MailBeaver.

Free and Pro

Every new install gets 14 days of Pro free, with no card needed. After that, MailBeaver moves to Free unless you upgrade. Your accounts and settings are kept.

Upgrading: Settings › Plan → pick monthly ($4.99), yearly ($39) or lifetime. Pay on the checkout page, and you'll get a license key by email. Paste it into Settings › Plan and click Activate.

Another computer: paste the same key there. One key works on up to 3 Chrome profiles. To move it, click Remove license on the old one first.

Cancelling: use the link in your receipt email, or email hello@hummingbits.com. Pro stays on until the end of the period you paid for.

Your privacy

• There's no MailBeaver server. Your email data stays in your browser.
• Only each email's sender, subject and a short preview go to the AI provider you chose, with your own key. Full emails and attachments are never downloaded.
• MailBeaver can't permanently delete email.
• Remove an account in Settings › Accounts to delete its data. Uninstalling deletes everything.

The full privacy policy is at https://mailbeaver.hummingbits.com/privacy.html.

Troubleshooting

Emails say "Heuristic (no AI)". The AI didn't sort them, so MailBeaver used simple rules instead. Check Settings › AI provider: is a key saved for the provider that's selected? Then look at Settings › Activity log for an error from the last run. A free Gemini key can hit its daily limit on a very busy day; the next brief retries those emails.

Google says "This app isn't verified". You're trying MailBeaver before Google has finished reviewing it. Click Advanced → Go to MailBeaver if you trust it, or wait for the public release.

An account says "Sign-in expired". Click Reconnect next to it in Settings › Accounts. This is expected after you change your Google password or remove MailBeaver's access in your Google Account. If reconnecting fails, remove the account and add it again.

No morning brief or notifications. Chrome needs to be running at the brief's hour; MailBeaver runs the brief the next time Chrome opens if it missed it. Check that notifications for Chrome are allowed in your computer's settings, and that the hour in Settings › Brief and cleanup is right.

"MailBeaver no longer has access to Google Tasks". You removed the permission in your Google Account. Click Add task on any email to connect again.

Something else. Email hello@hummingbits.com with what you saw. If you can, copy the last lines of Settings › Activity log into your email: it shows what went wrong without showing your mail.

Questions

Does MailBeaver read my whole email? No. It reads the sender, recipients, subject, date, labels, size and Gmail's short preview. It never downloads full emails or attachments.

Can MailBeaver delete my email for good? No. Google's permission it uses can't permanently delete. Everything goes to Trash for 30 days.

Does it work when Chrome is closed? No. The brief and rules run while Chrome is open. A missed brief runs when Chrome next starts.

Does it work with Outlook or other email? Not yet. MailBeaver is for Gmail and Google Workspace accounts.

How much does the AI cost? With Gemini's free tier, nothing for a typical inbox. With OpenAI or Claude, a day's brief usually costs a few cents, billed by them to your account.