After my layoff, I asked the AI to clean up my email. It warned me first.

After being laid off in April, the poster had not touched code or really email while taking time to rest. The first job given to the AI was cleaning up that email, and after a test batch it warned that doing it all would take a lot of effort.

This only partly worked. Read what happened before you try it.

How it works

Asks the AI to clean up the email inbox
It runs a test batch
It warns that cleaning it all will take a lot of effort

Why it’s worth knowing

The agent did not just start on the whole inbox. A small test batch showed how big the job was, and it said so before going further.

Where it’s from

Summarized from a public post on bsky.app. See the original ↗

Upgraded prompt

A ready-to-use prompt for this idea, built from research on what makes AI agents do the job right: who the AI should be, the exact steps, and a check to make sure it was done the way you wanted.

1Who the AI should be

2The prompt, with the steps

3The check when it’s done

Upgraded prompts are coming soon.

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Every idea is a real post from someone who tried it, summarized in our words, with a link to the original. App names are swapped for plain words.