Gmail in Roma
Your operator reads your mail, drafts replies and sends what you approve.
Connect Gmail and your operator can search your mail, read a thread, draft a reply into your Drafts and send it once you approve it on a card. Connecting also switches on Mail check, a morning automation that goes through the mail since its last run. Message bodies are read on Roma's server and never kept in your chat history.
What the operator does with your mail
Mara opens Roma over coffee and asks "What needs my reply?" The operator sorts her recent mail into what needs her, what she is waiting on from others and what is only for her information, and answers with the threads that need her, each linked. "Turn those into tasks" creates a task per thread on her Tasks list, with the link back to the mail on each.
She asks for the PDF her landlord sent last month. The operator finds the thread, reads the attachment's text into the task she is working on and leaves a link to the email. An image from a mail can be attached to a task. A document's text goes into the task's body.
"Draft a reply to Noor saying the contract is fine" lands a draft in her Gmail Drafts, written with the thread behind it, and nothing is sent. "Send it" brings up a card with the recipient, the subject and the body, and the mail leaves only when she approves.
The operator can also search by sender, words, dates or a label, read a thread or one message, list your drafts, and look up a contact's address.
Keeping senders out
Ask "unsubscribe from the Brightline newsletter" and the operator leaves the list for you, through the one-click link, the unsubscribe address or the page the sender offers. When none of those is safe to use, it says so and gives you the page's link instead of guessing. "Archive the Northwind invitations from now on" archives that sender's mail in your Gmail inbox at once, 100 messages at most, and again every morning with Mail check. "Keep the Harbor weekly" tells the operator never to offer that sender again.
Both ask first, with one exception: when you name the act and the sender in your own words, or answer an offer the operator made, that is the approval, and it runs at once.
The moment Gmail connects, the operator posts its first suggestions: newsletters you could leave and senders you could archive.
What it never does
The operator never sends a mail you have not seen on a card, never forwards one, and never picks a From address. It never deletes mail permanently: a move to the trash asks first, and Gmail's trash is recoverable. It never reorganises your mailbox beyond the archive you asked for, never creates filters, and never touches forwarding, vacation replies or any other account setting. Mail bodies are never kept in Roma's chat history. What the conversation keeps is the subjects, the people and any summary you asked for. Roma's use of Gmail data follows Google's policy for data received from its APIs, including its Limited Use requirements, and the privacy policy has the details.
Mail check and Meeting prep
Connecting Gmail switches on Mail check. It runs every morning at 7:10, reads the mail since its previous run and reports it numbered by what to do, with nothing on a quiet morning. It does not run the moment you connect: the suggestions message is the first thing you get, and Mail check's first run is the next morning. When Google Calendar is connected too, Meeting prep adds the thread you have with each person in the day's meetings. Both are described in the automations Roma starts with. Disconnecting Gmail pauses Mail check.
Learning from your mail
The connection's page has a switch, Use to learn about me. On, Roma reads subjects and first lines of your mail, never the mail itself, to learn what is going on for you: trips, plans, who you deal with. Marketing and notifications are skipped. Off stops future reads, and what Roma already learned stays. Memory explains what Roma knows about you.
How to connect Gmail
Open Settings → Connections and press Gmail. Google's sign-in page opens in a browser window. Choose the account, allow what it lists, and close the page when it says Connected. Back in Roma the row carries a green check, and its page shows the permission groups: Reading is always allowed, Creating and Updating cover drafts, and Deleting and Sending ask first unless you set them to Always allow. One Gmail account per connection. On the iPhone the row is in Settings → Connections as well. The general steps are in Connect an app to Roma, and the public page is /connections/gmail.
How to disconnect
Settings → Connections, press Gmail, then Disconnect. Roma's access ends at once and Mail check pauses. Tasks created from mail keep their links.
Questions people ask
Does Roma read all my mail when I connect it?
No. The operator reads what an ask needs: a search, one thread, the recent mail Mail check looks at each morning. The Use to learn about me switch on the connection's page is the one standing read, and it covers subjects and first lines only.
Can the operator send an email on its own?
Not unless you set Sending to Always allow on the connection's page. By default a send shows a card with the recipient, the subject and the body, and waits for you.
Can it delete mail?
It can move a message or a whole thread to Gmail's trash, which asks first and can be undone in Gmail. It cannot delete anything permanently.
Does Mail check run as soon as I connect?
No. Connecting posts the operator's first suggestions about your senders, and Mail check's first run is the next morning at 7:10.