Midpath | Auto labelling gmail inbox with GPT

A simple workflow of reading the mail and labelling it in gmail, ends up being excessively powerful.

About Allbox

One of the most common things people do every single day at work is check their email. It sounds simple. But for most people, it has slowly turned into one of the most stressful parts of the day. Overflowing inboxes, missed messages, and hours spent just figuring out what needs attention - this is the normal now.

In this article, we look at how people deal with email today, why the existing tools are not enough, and how Allbox approaches this differently - by letting you describe what you want in plain English and having it done automatically.

How email has evolved over the years

Overview

Email has been around since the early 1970s. What started as a simple way to send a message between two computers has grown into the most widely used communication tool in the world, with over 4 billion email users today.

Overall, email has gone through three broad phases:

Simple text messaging (1970s–1990s) : Email was just text. You sent a message, the other person read it. No threads, no folders, no search.
Organised clients (2000s) : Tools like Outlook and Thunderbird introduced folders, filters, and rules. You could now sort email, but it required manual setup.
Smart inbox (2010s–now) : Gmail introduced tabs (Primary, Social, Promotions). Later came Priority Inbox, Nudges, and Smart Reply. Email started getting some intelligence built in.

Here is a quick look at how the major tools have changed over time:

Gmail SaaS Tabs Priority Inbox Smart Reply

Launched in 2004, Gmail brought search-based email and large storage. Over the years it added tabs, filters, priority inbox, and AI-powered nudges. It remains the most widely used email client but its automation tools require technical setup to use well.

Outlook SaaS / Desktop Rules Focused Inbox Microsoft 365

Microsoft Outlook has had rules-based email management for decades. Its "Focused Inbox" separates important emails from the rest automatically. More powerful than Gmail filters but still requires technical knowledge to configure properly.

The pattern is clear. Tools have gotten smarter, but they still either require technical setup or give you no control over the logic. There is no tool that lets an ordinary person describe exactly what they want, in plain language, and have it done reliably. That is the gap Allbox fills.

How people handle email today

The daily routine

A typical workday for most professionals starts with opening Gmail. Within minutes, the same pattern plays out - scroll, scan, delete, reply, repeat. Here is roughly what that looks like:

Open Gmail in the morning. See 40–80 new emails.
Scroll through to find the ones that actually matter.
Miss 2–3 important ones buried under newsletters and CC threads.
Spend 20–30 minutes just doing triage before any real work starts.
Come back after lunch - repeat the same process again.
End of day - inbox has 200+ unread, most of which are noise.

This is not a rare situation. Professionals spend an average of 2.5 hours per day on email. A large chunk of that is just sorting and deciding what is important. That is time that could go toward actual work.

What people try to do about it

Gmail already has some tools - filters, labels, and stars. Most people have tried them at some point. Overall there are 3 common approaches people take:

Manual triage : Open every email, read it, decide what to do. Honest but slow and exhausting.
Gmail filters : Set up rules using Gmail's filter UI - by sender, subject, keywords. Works, but rigid and hard to maintain over time.
Just archive everything : Mark all as read, hope nothing important was missed. Common, but a slow way to lose track of things.

None of these truly solve the problem. Manual triage is unsustainable. Gmail filters require exact keyword matching and break the moment the email is worded slightly differently. Archiving everything is giving up.

The problems Allbox solves

Before looking at what Allbox does, it is worth being specific about what is actually broken. Here are the real pain points:

Problem	What happens today
Important emails get buried	A client reply lands in the same inbox as 50 newsletters. You miss it until the next day.
Gmail filters are too rigid	You set a filter for "invoice" but the email says "billing statement" - the filter misses it entirely.
Too much time on triage	Scanning, starring, deleting, marking as read - this is not work, it is overhead that adds up every day.
CC and newsletter noise	You are CC'd on 30 threads you do not need to act on. They sit unread and create anxiety.
No smart rules without code	To build smarter filters you need regex, scripts, or third-party apps. Most people just give up.

What Allbox offers

Allbox connects to your existing Gmail account and lets you write rules in plain English. You describe what you want to happen - Allbox figures out the logic and applies it automatically to every incoming email.

The idea is simple: you should not need to know how Gmail filters work to have a clean inbox. You just need to be able to describe what you want, the same way you would explain it to a person.

For example, instead of building a Gmail filter like this:

From: (@acme.com)
Subject: (update OR milestone OR delivery)
Action: Apply label "Client"

You just write this in Allbox:

"Label as CLIENT-UPDATE if the email is from Acme Corp or mentions a project milestone"

Allbox reads that, understands the intent, and applies the label correctly - even when the email is worded differently each time.

Features

What you get

Plain English rules - Write what you want in natural language. No filter syntax to learn.
Auto-labeling - Allbox applies labels to matching emails as they arrive.
Auto-archiving - Move noise out of your inbox automatically. Newsletters, bulk mail, CC threads.
Priority flagging - Star or mark as important based on content, sender, or intent.
Unlimited rules - Create as many rules as you need. No cap.
Works on your existing inbox - No new email address. No migration. Connects to Gmail in under 60 seconds.
Role-based templates - Starter rule packs for founders, sales reps, HR managers, freelancers, and more.

Setup and workflow

Getting started

The setup takes under 2 minutes. Here is what it looks like:

Step 1 - Go to app.allbox.in and sign in with your Google account.
Step 2 - Grant Allbox access to Gmail so it can read emails and apply labels.
Step 3 - Write your first rule in plain English and save it.
Step 4 - Allbox runs on every new email from that point. You do nothing else.

Writing a rule

Rules follow a simple pattern. You describe a condition and what action to take:

"If [condition], then [action]"

You do not have to follow that format strictly. Allbox understands variations. For example, all of these work:

"Label as URGENT if email mentions a deadline or due date"
"Mark as important when someone from the sales team emails me"
"Move to Finance folder if it looks like an invoice or payment request"
"Archive automatically if it's a newsletter or promotional email"

How Allbox processes each email

Each time a new email arrives in your Gmail:

Allbox reads the subject, sender, and body of the email.
It checks each of your saved rules against that email.
For any rule that matches, the action is applied.
The whole process happens in seconds. You never see it happen.

Examples

Below are some real examples of rules people write in Allbox, grouped by use case. These show what the prompt looks like and what Allbox does with it.

Deadline Alerts

"If an email mentions a deadline within 3 days, label ACTION-REQUIRED"
"If the email contains phrases like "urgent", "ASAP", or "by today", label URGENT"
"If an email asks me to review or submit something before a date, label DEADLINE"

Customer Alerts

"If a customer email mentions refund, cancellation, or complaint, label ESCALATION"
"If a customer sounds frustrated or unhappy, label CUSTOMER-ESCALATION"
"If a customer says they will cancel or switch services, label CHURN-RISK"

Billing Alerts

"If an email contains invoice, payment due, or billing issue, label BILLING"
"If an email mentions payment failure or subscription renewal, label PAYMENT-ALERT"
"If an email includes an invoice attachment, label INVOICE"

Approvals

"If an email asks for approval or sign-off, label APPROVAL-REQUIRED"
"If an email asks me to review a document or proposal, label REVIEW"
"If an email mentions contract approval or agreement signing, label CONTRACT"

Sales / Leads

"If a potential client asks for pricing or a demo, label SALES-LEAD"
"If an email mentions budget, proposal, or quotation, label OPPORTUNITY"
"If someone asks about product features or integration, label SALES-INQUIRY"

These are just starting points. You can be as specific or as broad as you want. Allbox works best when the rule matches how you actually think about your email - not how Gmail's filter syntax wants you to think.

Conclusion

Email is not going away. If anything it keeps growing - more threads, more CC's, more automated notifications landing in the same inbox as the emails that actually matter. The tools we have had so far either ask too much from us (manual triage, rigid filters) or give us too little control (smart tabs we cannot customise).

Allbox takes a different approach. Instead of asking you to learn a new system, it asks you to describe what you want - the same way you would explain it to a colleague. Then it handles everything else.

If you spend more than 30 minutes a day on email triage, it is worth trying. Setup takes under 2 minutes.

Go try it at app.allbox.in. If you have questions, let's talk on the Help Desk.

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Auto labelling gmail inbox with GPT