draft gmail replies with ai, then send them yourself

a bot can save a reply into your gmail drafts, in the same thread as the email it answers, with any attachment it needs, and your gmail signature if the connection can read it.

by the dusk bot team · checked 12 november 2026 · how we made this

nothing is sent: the draft waits in gmail for you to read, edit and send. it's a gentle way to hand email to ai: a bad draft just sits there until you delete it.

pixel art: a mint pixel bot and a yellow pixel bot beside the Gmail mark on a white tile, a mailbox with a letter and a notebook, on a lilac hill in front of green terraced fields, one saying "draft ready"

create email draft, in plain words

it writes the email and parks it in your drafts. you press send. it can file the draft inside the right conversation, add people on cc, attach a file and add your signature.

if it can't find the thread you meant, gmail still saves the draft, just as a new email. worth knowing when you go looking for it.

a routine to copy

paste this into a chat with your bot

every weekday at 9, look at emails from people at @acme.com that came in since yesterday and still have no reply from me. for each one, read the whole thread and save a short reply in my gmail drafts, in that thread, leaving the subject empty so it stays in the thread, in my voice: friendly, no exclamation marks, sign off with just my first name. then tell me here which drafts you made, one line each. never send anything.

when: weekdays at 9:00
needs: gmail connected, with read and write access for this bot

what comes back looks like this (an example)

3 drafts in gmail

1. dana (acme): re: q3 quote, says we can do the 15th.
2. lee (acme): re: invoice 1042, attached the corrected pdf.
3. omar (acme): re: kickoff, proposes tuesday or wednesday at 10.

nothing sent.

good jobs for it

answer the three clients who wrote overnight, so you just read and send
turn your call notes into a follow-up with the agreed next steps
reply to a supplier with the invoice attached from their last email
write a polite "no" to an invitation for you to soften or send

before it runs

dusk bot counts Create email draft as a change: it alters something in Gmail, and the sending setting does not cover it. a bot you allow only to read can never call it.

the permissions Gmail asks for to run it: https://mail.google.com/, gmail.compose, gmail.modify, gmail.readonly.

how to start

connect gmail in Connected apps with read and write for this bot. drafting is a change, so read only won't do.
tell it how you write, once: "short, warm, no exclamation marks, first name only". it keeps that in Memory.
ask for one draft, read it in gmail, fix what's off ("shorter", "don't apologise").
once two or three come back right, turn it into a routine like the one above.

limits worth knowing

no thread found? it saves a new email with the subject you gave it.
if the bot gives a reply its own subject, gmail starts a new conversation. ask it to leave the subject blank for replies.
a draft has your name on it. read before you send.
it doesn't know what you said on a call. tell it once and it keeps a note.

the details it works from

input	required	what it is
`cc`	no	Carbon Copy (CC) recipients' email addresses.
`bcc`	no	Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) recipients' email addresses.
`body`	no	Email body content (plain text or HTML); `is_html` must be True if HTML.
`is_html`	no	Set to True if `body` is already formatted HTML.
`subject`	no	Email subject line.
`thread_id`	no	ID of an existing Gmail thread to reply to; omit for new thread.

from composio's catalog for Gmail (action GMAIL_CREATE_EMAIL_DRAFT, read 12 november 2026⁴). your bot fills these in from what you tell it.

what it looks like

before

from: lee (acme)
"the total on invoice 1042 looks wrong, can you check?"

after the bot

draft, in the same thread:
"hi lee, you're right, we doubled the shipping. corrected invoice attached. sorry about that.
maya"

waiting in drafts. nothing sent.

an illustration with made-up names and numbers.

try it in 2 minutes

connect gmail with read and write
ask: "draft a reply to dana's last email, two lines"
open your drafts and read it
say what to fix; it remembers

mistakes people make

giving it read only

saving a draft is a change. it needs read and write for gmail.

no voice notes

three lines about how you write beat ten corrections later.

questions

will it send the draft by itself?

no. this action only saves a draft. sending is a different action; it asks you first by default, unless you set a daily amount or the bot is on Full access with no sending rule.

can it reply inside the same gmail thread?

yes. it reads the thread and saves the draft into it, so it shows as a reply. if the thread can't be found, the draft is saved as a new email.

does it add my signature?

it can. tell it to include your gmail signature, the one set up under send mail as in gmail's settings. if the connection can't read that setting, the signature is skipped, so check the sign-off.

sources

dusk bot docs: files and apps
dusk bot docs: memory
dusk bot docs: a bot's computer, asking first
composio, Gmail toolkit (catalog version 20261105_00), checked 12 november 2026

drafted with ai help from the dusk bot docs and the sources listed on this page, then checked against them. if something here is wrong or out of date, write to [email protected].