6DuckLearn Skills

inbox catch up summary

Use this when you return from vacation, a long weekend, or any absence and need to quickly understand what a specific sender has emailed you. Trigger when someone says: 'catch up on emails', 'summarise my inbox', 'what did [person] send', or 'I've been away'.

productivity Tags: curated, google-workspace, email, gmail, inbox

Attribution: Prepared by 6DuckLearn. Inspired by Google Workspace with Gemini Prompting Guide 101 (2025).

When to use this

You've been away — vacation, sick leave, a no-email day — and you need to know what arrived from a key person without reading every message. This prompt gives you an immediate snapshot.

What you'll get

A concise summary of all emails from the specified sender within your chosen timeframe, each with a clickable Sources tile so you can jump straight to the original email.

Prompt template

Use this in Gemini in Gmail (open Gmail, click the Gemini side panel):

Summarize emails from [sender name or email address] from the last [timeframe].

Fill in the variables:

  • [sender name or email address] — e.g. "my manager Sarah", "sarah@company.com", or "the finance team"
  • [timeframe] — e.g. "3 days", "week", "2 weeks", "while I was on leave (June 10–17)"

Customisation tips

  • Scope by topic: "Summarize emails from [manager] about the Q3 roadmap from the last week"
  • Multiple senders: Run separate prompts per sender and compare — Gemini handles one sender at a time best
  • After the summary appears, click any Sources tile to jump directly to that email thread
  • Works on mobile — open Gmail on your phone and tap the Gemini icon in the side panel

Iteration suggestions

After Gemini gives you the summary:

  1. Found action items? → use email-thread-action-items to extract tasks from a specific thread
  2. Need to reply? → use file-grounded-email-reply if you have a relevant Drive doc, or email-acknowledge-commit for a quick acknowledgement

Related skills in this workflow

Step Skill What it does
1 → You are here inbox-catch-up-summary Summarise emails from a sender after time away
2 email-thread-action-items Extract action items and deadlines from a thread
3 file-grounded-email-reply Draft a reply grounded in a Drive file
4 email-acknowledge-commit Send a quick acknowledgement with a commitment

Related skills

  • email acknowledge commit — Use this when you need to send a quick, professional reply that confirms receipt of an email and commits to a specific action by a deadline. Trigger when someone says: 'acknowledge this email', 'reply that I received it', 'confirm I'll take action', or 'send a holding reply'.
  • email thread action items — Use this when you're looking at a long email thread and need to know what tasks, deadlines, and owners came out of it — without reading every reply. Trigger when someone says: 'extract action items', 'what are the next steps in this thread', 'summarise this email chain', or 'what's due from this email'.
  • file grounded email reply — Use this when you need to reply to an email and have a Google Drive document that contains the relevant data, proposal, or initiative details. Trigger when someone says: 'draft a reply using my doc', 'respond using the [filename]', 'write an email referencing our proposal', or 'reply with context from a file'.
  • board meeting confirmation email — Use this when an executive needs to confirm attendance at a board meeting and request an agenda change — drafted and sent from Gmail with a single prompt. Trigger when someone says: 'confirm board meeting', 'reply to board invite', 'adjust board agenda', or 'add item to board agenda'.
  • daily briefing notebooklm — Use this when an executive wants a hands-free audio summary of their day's key documents, reports, and schedule — ideal for commutes or pre-meeting prep. Trigger when someone says: 'morning briefing', 'commute briefing', 'audio summary of my reports', 'NotebookLM overview', or 'brief me on today's docs'.
  • delegate meeting with assignments — Use this when an executive cannot attend a meeting and needs to delegate attendance, assign note-taking, specify a required decision, and assign ownership of follow-up work — all in one email. Trigger when someone says: 'I can't make the meeting', 'delegate the meeting', 'assign someone to attend in my place', or 'draft a meeting delegation email'.