Autopilot in Spark

Autopilot puts your inbox on autopilot. It takes over the repetitive work of managing email, like sorting, filing, reminding, and summarizing, so you can save your time and keep the important messages in view.

What is Autopilot? 

Autopilot lets you automate your inbox by simply describing what you want in a chat. You don't need to build rules by hand or know exactly what to automate: Spark looks at your mailbox, suggests useful automations, and turns your request into a working rule.
Autopilot covers more than moving emails around. It can act on incoming email, remind you to follow up, and send you summaries and digests: anything that takes inbox work off your plate.

A few things to know:

• You create and adjust Autopilot rules by chatting with Spark, no rule editor required
• Spark searches your real emails, contacts, and folders to understand what you mean, so you don't have to list senders or addresses
• Spark asks a question only when your mailbox can't answer it, and offers options you can tap
• You can preview a rule on the emails you already have before turning it on
• Autopilot shows you what it has done, like how many emails it processed, archived, summarized, or surfaced, so you can see the time you saved
• Autopilot focuses on your inbox. Rules work on the email accounts connected to Spark

Prerequisites

• Autopilot is available on Mac, Windows, and iOS platforms. Please note that on Mac, the feature requires macOS 13.0 or later and an M chip 
• Autopilot is part of the Spark Pro plan
• Rules that ask AI to read the content of an email require Spark +AI to be enabled
• Just like other Spark +AI features, it’s not available in China

How does it work? 

Every Autopilot automation is a rule: it looks for specific emails and then acts on them. You describe the rule in your own words, and Spark builds it in a few steps:

• Finds what you mean. Say “Archive newsletters from the running app,” and Spark searches your mailbox to find which sender that actually is. You don’t need to remember addresses
• Builds a precise rule. Spark makes sure the rule catches the right emails and nothing similar: for example, statements from your bank but not its promotional offers. The rule keeps working as new emails arrive, even when subject lines change
• Asks only when needed. If something is unclear, like which of three contacts named Anna you mean, Spark shows you the options and lets you pick
• Shows a preview. Before the rule goes live, Spark runs it on the emails you already have, shows you what it would catch, and explains what it will do
• Runs automatically. Once turned on, the rule works the moment a new email arrives or the moment you send one

How to set up Autopilot

Follow these steps to create your first Autopilot rule:

1. Open Autopilot in Spark by clicking or tapping its icon at the upper right.
2. Pick one of the suggested automations Spark prepared based on your inbox, or describe what you want in your own words.
3. Answer any questions Spark asks: for example, which account the rule should cover or what time a summary should arrive.
4. Review the preview: Spark shows the emails the rule would catch and explains what it will do.
5. If the preview looks right, turn the rule on. If not, tell Spark what to change.

Once your rules are running, Autopilot shows what it has handled for you, like the number of emails processed, grouped, archived, summarized, or surfaced. 

To change a rule later, open it and tell Spark what to adjust in the chat. 

What Autopilot can do

Which emails can a rule find: 

• Details of the email: the sender, recipients (To, Cc, Bcc), subject, text, the account it arrived in, when it arrived, and whether it has attachments
• Automated emails: messages from no-reply addresses, automatic notifications, bulk mail, auto-generated messages, and calendar invitations 
• Spark categories: emails Spark already sorts as Personal, Newsletters, or Notifications
• Content, read by AI: describe what you’re looking for in plain words: for example, “emails that ask me to do something” or “emails about the Riga project”, and Spark +AI checks each email for it

What can a rule do with them: 

• Organize: mark as read, archive, delete, move to a folder, or add a Spark label
• Keep things visible: pin an email or mark it as Priority
• Reduce distractions: snooze an email until later or turn off its push notification
• Follow up: remind you when someone hasn’t replied to an email you sent
• Summarize: get a short summary of each matching email, or a digest on a schedule: for example, every morning at 8
• Respond: send a reply you wrote in advance, or forward the email to someone else

Important to know

• You can create a rule for reply or forward (send right away), or create a draft (wouldn't be sent automatically)
• Summaries cover single emails: Spark summarizes each matching email on its own, not the whole thread
• Ask to do any action with emails with a specific topic or anything in attachments
• Muting notifications applies everywhere: if a rule turns off notifications for an email, it does so on all your devices
• For rules that look for automated emails (no-reply, notifications, bulk mail), the preview shows the maximum number of emails that could match rather than an exact count
• Actions run in the order listed in the rule. Spark won’t let you pin or prioritize an email after moving it to a folder, and will suggest a better order
• Right now, we do not have this feature in Shared Inboxes
• If your subscription gets canceled or tokens run out, the rule stops

Privacy

• Rules that check sender, subject, Spark categories, or automated emails work without sending your email to AI
• Rules that ask AI to read an email’s content and summaries use Spark +AI and follow the same privacy rules as all Spark +AI features. For full details, see Spark +AI: security and data and Spark’s Privacy Policy

Use case ideas

Autopilot is built for the small inbox chores you repeat every week. A few examples of what you can ask for:

• Keep newsletters out of your inbox: “Newsletters never belong in my inbox.”
• File emails automatically: “Anything from my landlord goes to the Home folder” or “Everything with an invoice attached goes to Accounting.”
• Separate what matters from the noise: “Important mail from my bank should be Priority, not their offers.”
• Clear out automated mail: “Stop showing me emails nobody can reply to.”
• Catch up in one read: “Every morning, sum up what came in overnight.”
• Never lose a follow-up: “Tell me who hasn’t come back to me.”
• Find what needs your action: “Only show me the emails that actually ask me for something.”
• Hand it off: “Forward these to the person who actually handles them.”
• Quiet your phone: “Don’t send me notifications for this one.”