mail-action-items

Mail Action Items — Extract Tasks from Email

Time window: $ARGUMENTS (default: last 3 days)

Step 1: Find candidate emails with action signals

Subject-line signals

DB="$HOME/Library/Mail/V10/MailData/Envelope Index"
SINCE=$(($(date +%s) - 259200))  # 3 days default; adjust per $ARGUMENTS

sqlite3 "$DB" "
SELECT datetime(m.date_received,'unixepoch','localtime') as dt,
       s.subject, a.address as sender, a.comment as name,
       mb.url as mailbox, m.ROWID, m.read, m.is_urgent
FROM messages m
JOIN subjects  s  ON m.subject = s.ROWID
JOIN addresses a  ON m.sender  = a.ROWID
JOIN mailboxes mb ON m.mailbox = mb.ROWID
WHERE m.date_received >= ${SINCE}
  AND m.deleted = 0
  AND m.automated_conversation != 2
  AND mb.url NOT LIKE '%Spam%' AND mb.url NOT LIKE '%Trash%'
  AND mb.url NOT LIKE '%Sent%'
  AND (
    s.subject LIKE '%action required%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%please review%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%approval%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%approve%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%sign off%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%deadline%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%due%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%RSVP%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%respond by%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%feedback%'
    OR s.subject LIKE '%request%'
    OR m.is_urgent = 1
    OR m.flagged = 1
  )
ORDER BY m.is_urgent DESC, m.date_received DESC;" 2>/dev/null

Urgent/flagged unread (always surface)

sqlite3 "$DB" "
SELECT datetime(m.date_received,'unixepoch','localtime') as dt,
       s.subject, a.address as sender, m.ROWID
FROM messages m
JOIN subjects s ON m.subject = s.ROWID
JOIN addresses a ON m.sender = a.ROWID
JOIN mailboxes mb ON m.mailbox = mb.ROWID
WHERE m.date_received >= ${SINCE}
  AND m.read = 0 AND m.deleted = 0
  AND m.automated_conversation != 2
  AND m.unsubscribe_type = 0
  AND mb.url NOT LIKE '%Spam%' AND mb.url NOT LIKE '%Trash%'
  AND mb.url NOT LIKE '%Sent%'
ORDER BY m.date_received DESC;" 2>/dev/null

Step 2: Read bodies and extract action items

For each candidate email, parse the body:

python3 ~/.claude/skills/_mail-shared/parser.py <ROWID1> <ROWID2> ...