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AI Email Manager is the section of Callin.io where your AI stops making calls and starts handling email. To open it, click the product switcher at the top of the left sidebar and choose AI Email Manager. It works around three areas:
  • Mail Agents: where you create and configure the agents that manage your mail.
  • Email: where you read and reply to the messages your agents have processed.
  • Tools: where you connect third-party services that give your agents extra powers.
A Mail Agent is an assistant that watches an inbox for you. It reads each new message, works out what it’s about, and prepares a reply following your instructions. You decide how far it goes: it can leave a draft for you to review, or send the reply on its own. Several agents can share the same inbox and split the work between them. Setting up your first agent takes about ten minutes, and you don’t need any technical background.
AI Email Manager is marked as Beta. It’s still growing, so some screens may look slightly different in your account.

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What you need before you start

  • The email account you want the agent to work with. It can be Gmail, Outlook, or almost any other provider.
  • If you’re not using Gmail or Outlook and your account has two-factor authentication, an app password: a special password your provider generates for external apps, so you never share your real one.
  • A rough idea of what the agent should do. One sentence is enough, for example: “answer questions about orders and pass anything about refunds to a person”.
  • Credits in your account. Each AI draft uses credits (see Credits for AI drafts).
You don’t need the inbox ready right now. You can build the agent first and connect the inbox later.

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Step 1 — Create the agent

Open Mail Agents. This is the list of every agent you’ve built. Click Create Agent in the top right.
Mail Agents list with four agents, each with the warning No email assigned, a search box and the Create Agent button

The Mail Agents list. Each agent shows its name, its creation date, and an orange warning while it has no inbox connected.

A short wizard opens with five steps:
1
Name your mail agent: a name your team will recognize, such as “Order Support” or “Sales Inbox”. Up to 50 characters.
2
System prompt: how the agent should handle email. Optional.
3
Email categories: labels to sort incoming mail. Optional.
4
Automation rules: which senders get automatic replies and who receives a copy.
5
Connect email: the inbox the agent will look after.
Every step after the name has Skip, and you can change everything later from the agent’s tabs.

Video: the five steps of the wizard, from the name to connecting the inbox.

The agent is created when you move past Email categories. If you close the wizard after that step, the agent stays in the list. You can finish it or delete it from there.
Under the name in the list you’ll see No email assigned in orange. That’s normal: no inbox is connected yet. You’ll fix that in step 4. Each row has a ⋮ menu with three actions:
  • Copy ID: copies the agent’s unique identifier.
  • Edit: opens its configuration.
  • Delete: removes the agent after a confirmation. Your email account and its messages are not touched.
The agent’s configuration has four tabs: Agent, Categories, Mailbox and Advanced. The next steps follow them in order. You can rename the agent from the text field at the top of the screen.

Video: Edit an agent → write the Conversation Prompt → choose the model → add a category → review the Advanced tab.

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Step 2 — Tell the agent how to behave

Open the Agent tab. This is where you shape the agent’s personality and judgement.

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Conversation Prompt

The Conversation Prompt is where you write, in plain language, how the agent should handle email. There’s no special syntax: write it the way you’d brief a new colleague. A short example:
Respond professionally and forward billing questions to a human.
The more precise you are, the more predictable the results. A more useful version for an online store: “You answer on behalf of Brightside Home, an online store for home goods. Be friendly and brief. Answer questions about orders, shipping and returns. If a customer asks for a refund, say a member of the team will reply within one business day. Never promise delivery dates.” The counter in the bottom right shows how much you’ve used of the 4000 characters. Saved changes apply to new incoming mail.
Write down what the agent must not do, not just what it should do. Sentences like “never confirm appointments”, “never promise refunds” or “never discuss prices over email” prevent most surprises.

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AI Intelligence (LLM)

On the right you’ll see AI Intelligence (LLM). An LLM (large language model) is the engine that reads the email and drafts the answer. Click the model card to open the LLM panel, then click the model to see the choices. Next to each model you’ll see its reasoning effort, (Low) or (Medium): how much the model “thinks” before writing. More effort brings more nuance, but also more time and cost per reply. New agents start with GPT 4.1 Mini. In the same panel you’ll find Temperature, a slider from 0 to 1 that starts at 0.7. Lower values keep the wording consistent and repeatable. Higher values make it more varied and natural, but less predictable.
For beginners: You don’t have to touch any of this. If replies feel robotic, try Claude Sonnet or raise the temperature a little. If they vary too much, lower it.

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Step 3 — Organise your mail with categories

Open the Categories tab. Categories are optional labels that tell the agent what kind of message it’s dealing with: refunds, order status, complaints, and so on. Each category appears as a card with its badge and description, a pencil icon to edit it and a bin icon to delete it. They let you treat each kind of email differently. For example, the agent can reply on its own about order status, but only prepare a draft when the message is about money. Click Add category. A window opens with these fields: You can pick one of the preset colours or create your own with the + swatch.
Add category window with the name Order status, a description, the green badge color and both reply switches turned on

The Add category window. The badge on the right previews how the label will look.

Below the colours there are two switches:
  • Generate draft reply for this category: on by default. The agent prepares a reply and leaves it ready for you to review.
  • Auto-reply for this category: off by default. The agent sends the reply itself, with no review.
If you switch both off, the agent only labels the message (Categorize only) and writes no reply. That’s useful for mail a person should always handle, like complaints or legal matters. Click Add category to add it. Each category needs both a name and a description.
Common mistake: Writing a vague description, like “important stuff”. The agent uses this text to decide which emails belong here, so describe the actual content: “messages asking for an invoice, a refund, or a change of payment method”. If emails land in the wrong category, tightening the description is usually the fastest fix.
Start with Generate draft reply on and Auto-reply off. Read the drafts for a few days. Once the agent gets the tone and the facts right, turn on automatic replies where mistakes would be harmless.

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Step 4 — Connect the inbox

Open the Mailbox tab. This is where you link the email account the agent will look after. Until you do, the agent is configured but idle. You have three options:
  • Gmail: connect with your Google account, on Google’s usual permission screen.
  • Outlook: connect with Microsoft 365, in the same way.
  • Other email (IMAP & SMTP): connect any other provider. IMAP lets the agent read your inbox and SMTP lets it send replies. Your provider publishes both settings in its help pages.
If you choose Other email (IMAP & SMTP), the IMAP / SMTP setup form asks for: Click Connect mailbox. Your credentials are encrypted and stored securely. Callin.io then imports the messages from the chosen period (Syncing your inbox). Until the sync finishes, new messages may take a moment to appear.
You can skip this step and connect the inbox later. Everything else stays saved, but the agent won’t process anything until an inbox is linked.

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Step 5 — Fine-tune the behaviour (optional)

Open the Advanced tab. Everything here is optional, and both rules start switched off.

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Automation rules

Reply only to a specific sender. Switch it on and type an address in Sender email address. The agent then processes and replies only to that address, using your prompt. Other senders are ignored, and categories become optional. It’s useful for single-purpose automations, and it’s the safest way to test an agent in a live inbox: point it at your own address and watch what it does. Copy automatic replies. Sends a copy of every automatic reply to an extra address, which you type in Copy recipient email. Under Delivery type you choose:
  • CC (visible): the person who receives the reply can see that address.
  • BCC (hidden): the copy is sent silently.
This is handy when a manager wants to keep an eye on what the agent sends.
If you enable automatic replies in any category, enable the copy as well, at least while you’re building trust in the agent.
If the copy goes to a colleague, choose BCC (hidden). With CC (visible), your customer sees your colleague’s address in every message.

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Agent priority

When several agents share the same inbox, the first agent that matches an email handles it. Use the arrows to change the order. Order them from most specific to most general: an agent restricted to a single sender should sit above a general support agent. You can only change the order once an inbox is connected. Until then, the screen shows Connect an inbox on the Mailbox tab to manage agent priority.

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Step 6 — Save your changes

When you have unsaved changes, a bar appears at the bottom of the screen with two buttons: Discard, which undoes your changes, and Save, which stores them.
Don’t leave the screen while that bar is visible. If you navigate away without clicking Save, your changes are lost.

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The Email section: read and reply in one place

Email is the unified inbox: the messages processed by your agents, from every connected mailbox, with the category each one received. It’s where you review, edit and send the drafts your agents prepare, and where you can generate replies with AI. See Email.

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The Tools section: give your agents superpowers

Tools is where you connect third-party services that give your agents live data, such as the Amazon Seller API to look up orders and add tracking links to replies. See Tools.

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How to check it worked

Three quick signs that everything is in place:
1
In the Mail Agents list, your agent no longer shows No email assigned under its name.
2
Send a test email to the connected inbox from another address of yours, using wording that matches one of your categories.
3
Wait a few minutes and open Email. Depending on the category, you should find a draft ready to review or a reply already sent.
If nothing happens, check in order:
  • That the inbox really is connected and has finished syncing.
  • That Reply only to a specific sender isn’t on and pointing at a different address.
  • That your test email matches a category description. An automatic reply only goes out when the message falls into a category with auto-reply on.
  • That you have credits, or that your free trial is still active.

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What to do next

  • Add a couple more categories now that you’ve seen the agent in action. Real emails always suggest labels you hadn’t thought of.
  • Visit Email every day during the first week to review the drafts and polish the Conversation Prompt.
  • Take a look at Tools from time to time: new integrations can appear as the product grows.