Eight questions to ask your AI assistant about your Koltrix inbox
Starred, unassigned, mentions, waiting for a reply, cold pitches, one address, a date range, big files: eight read-only questions an assistant can answer.
On this page(12 sections)
- Before you start
- 1. "What have I starred?"
- 2. "What in the team inbox has no owner yet?"
- 3. "Where was I mentioned?"
- 4. "Who still owes me a reply?"
- 5. "Show me unread cold pitches."
- 6. "What came in to support@ today?"
- 7. "What did Acme send in October?"
- 8. "Which messages are over 10 MB?"
- A five-minute daily routine
- What these tools will not do
- Key takeaways
Most people connect an assistant to their inbox and then ask it the one question they always asked a search box: "find the email from Dana." That works, but it is the smallest thing the connection can do. The more useful questions are about the state of your work: what is waiting on you, what is waiting on someone else, and what nobody owns.
Koltrix has a set of read-only list tools made for exactly those questions. This post goes through eight of them, in plain language, with the question to type and what to do with the answer. They all read mail; none of them can send, delete or forward anything.
Before you start
You need an assistant connected to your workspace. If you have not done that yet, follow connecting Claude to Koltrix step by step. The tools below need the mail-read permission that you approve at sign-in, and they only show mail that your own account is allowed to see. If you can only see two of the shared mailboxes, the assistant sees the same two. The background on permissions is in MCP and OAuth permissions explained for email.
Each answer comes back as a short list of conversations with the subject, whether it is unread and a link that opens the conversation in Koltrix. Treat the assistant as a fast way to a list, then open the link and decide.
1. "What have I starred?"
The tool is list_starred. A star is a promise to yourself: "I need to come back to this." Over weeks the promises pile up and you stop looking at the star view because it is long.
Ask for the list once a week. A good follow-up is "which of these is oldest?" Anything older than a month is either done (unstar it) or has become a task that belongs in a real to-do list.
2. "What in the team inbox has no owner yet?"
The tool is list_unassigned. In a shared inbox, the most expensive messages are the ones everyone assumes someone else is handling. This list shows Inbox conversations that nobody on the team owns yet.
You can narrow it to unread only. If you share an inbox with others, make this question the first one you ask at the start of a shift. The habit it supports is described in teams in Koltrix: assign conversations, notes and mentions.
3. "Where was I mentioned?"
The tool is list_my_mentions. When a teammate mentions you in an internal note, you get a notification, and notifications are easy to lose. This tool lists the conversations where you were mentioned, so a request for your input does not sit forgotten in a thread you never reopened.
Ask it at the end of the day. If the list is not empty, either answer the note or reply to say when you will.
4. "Who still owes me a reply?"
The tool is list_awaiting_reply. It finds conversations where you wrote last and are waiting for an answer. This is the opposite of the usual "what needs a reply from me" view, and it is the one most people lack.
It gives you the raw material for follow-ups. Ask for the list, then ask the assistant to draft a short nudge for the oldest two. The draft is saved for you to read and send yourself, as covered in safe sending from Claude. For wording that does not nag, see when a customer goes quiet.
5. "Show me unread cold pitches."
The tool is list_by_kind, and you give it a kind: primary, updates, promotions, newsletters or cold. This uses the same sorting Koltrix already applies to your Inbox, so the answer matches what you see in the app.
Two uses stand out. Ask for unread newsletters when you have time to read, and ask for cold pitches when you want to clear them in one go. Because the sorting is done for you, you do not have to describe what a cold pitch looks like.
6. "What came in to support@ today?"
The tool is list_mailbox_threads. It lists conversations delivered to one of your addresses, such as support@, and you can choose a folder and unread only.
If you run several addresses, this is the way to look at one without the noise of the others. It respects mailbox permissions: a mailbox you have not been given access to is not listed. For setting up shared addresses with the right access, see shared mailboxes and MCP: a team setup.
7. "What did Acme send in October?"
The tool is list_between. It lists conversations whose latest message falls between two dates, and you can add a sender. Dates in a question are easy for people and fiddly for search syntax, which is why this tool exists.
It is useful for reconciling things: invoices from one vendor in one month, everything from a customer during an incident, or what arrived while you were away. The assistant converts "last week" or "in October" into the dates for you; check the dates it chose if the answer looks thin.
8. "Which messages are over 10 MB?"
The tool is find_large_mail. It finds conversations with a message over a size you choose, across all folders. Big attachments are the quiet reason mailboxes fill up.
Ask for the list when storage runs low. The assistant cannot delete anything, so you open each conversation and decide what to do. If large files are a recurring problem, why attachments over 25 MB fail and what to send instead has a better habit than keeping them in mail.
A five-minute daily routine
You can combine these into one short check:
- Ask what has no owner and claim or assign it.
- Ask where you were mentioned and answer or acknowledge.
- Ask who owes you a reply and nudge the oldest.
- Ask what is starred and clear what is done.
On Fridays, add the unread newsletters and the cold pitches, and use the large-file list when storage is tight. If you prefer, put the routine in one sentence to the assistant: "Run my morning check: unassigned, mentions, awaiting reply."
What these tools will not do
- They only read. Lists never change a conversation. Organizing tools such as labels and archive are separate and reversible.
- They show what you can already see. An assistant cannot read a mailbox your account has no access to.
- They are not the decision. A list tells you what exists. You judge what matters, and any reply is a draft until you send it.
The complete catalogue, with every tool and its inputs, is on the MCP page, and every tool in the Koltrix MCP server explained describes the longer-standing ones.
Key takeaways
Searching for one email is the smallest use of a connected assistant. The eight list tools answer questions about the state of your work: starred, unassigned, mentioned, waiting, by kind, by address, by date and by size. Ask them on a routine, open what they return and keep the decisions, and the assistant saves you the scrolling without touching your mail.
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