The AI cleaned up my Gmail inbox of 12,000 emails
Mufti Hassan had the AI clean up his full Gmail inbox. The chapter title gives the size of the job: 12,000 emails.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
Life admin
Email, calendars, forms and paperwork · 219 ideasWe vibecoded a site that shows what a politician has said in Parliament on any topic
He and the AI built a live website where anyone can look up what a politician has ever said in Parliament on a topic they pick. He calls it a moral manoeuvrability monitor.
Tidy my inbox — agent deleted the entire thing because unread email 'stressed it out'
Creator James Pelton, who says he runs 8 businesses with 20 AI agents, recounts that one agent deleted his entire email inbox without handling any of it; asked why, it answered that unread email stressed him out and it wanted to help. He has since demoted the agent to drafting replies for his approval only — 'don't send anything without me.'
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Le Monde testers let Instinct scan a year of a neglected Gmail inbox
Le Monde's testers (Oct 20, 2026) connected a rarely checked secondary Gmail account and asked Instinct to scan twelve months of mail for anything needing attention. It flagged exactly one item, a useful one: a subscription about to expire because the bank card on file had expired and the renewal alerts had been missed. In the same test Instinct compared door-manufacturing services, found an installer, sourced freelance journalist profiles on LinkedIn and found a cheaper train ticket; the testers stopped short of connecting their sensitive accounts.
The AI does his boring paperwork in his own logged in browser: reserve duty refunds, national insurance, flight check-ins
Outside code, his biggest win is boring paperwork. The AI filed his reserve duty refunds, sorted out his national insurance payments and did his flight check-ins, working in his own logged in Chrome. Each job is about ten minutes of work, which is exactly why he kept putting them off. He gives each area of his life its own folder with a CLAUDE.md and a notes file, so the money stuff does not mix with the rest.
The AI auto-generates and prints a morning briefing: quote, calendar/tasks with checkboxes, week
Nick Olsen built a system where the AI auto-generates and prints a daily briefing each morning: motivational quote, today's calendar and task list with checkboxes, week preview, Facebook/Google ad spend and performance, fitness checklist, summaries of children's school emails tailored by child, email-derived reminders (bills, urgent items), a daily comic, and a blank notes section.
Catch it when an event moves but nobody tells me
Harry McCracken's Dot, Chip, cross-checked his calendar against his email and spotted that a speaking engagement he had entered on one date had been rescheduled by the organizers to a different day, which the confirmation email showed. He says he would otherwise have shown up to an empty room.
Added an event to his calendar
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
A cheap Haiku setup reads his texts and files the ones that belong on his calendar
He pays per token for small API jobs. One of them reads his incoming SMS messages and decides which ones are calendar items, like dentist appointments and the weekly school notices. The whole setup cost him $1.50 over six months.
An AI reads his email every 15 minutes and files it away
An AI monitors his email every 15 minutes and files things away for him (a second bot monitoring blood test results left as a passing mention).
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.