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How to get your emails in Melo

Learn about our Gmail integration and manual options

Updated over 5 months ago

As founders, we get emails about our kids school and activities every day. There's a special spirit day coming up, school is dismissing early next week, the location of basketball practice was changed to a different gym. These are never ending. Melo can help.

Option 1: Direct Email Integration (Recommended)

This is the easiest way - Melo connects directly to your inbox and automatically processes new emails as they arrive.

How it works:

  1. Go to your Pod settings and select your own profile

  2. Look for the "automated emails from" button and press "+"

  3. Connect the gmail account you want (Are you using a different email? Let us know!)

  4. Grant Melo permission to read your emails

  5. Set up your filters.

Privacy note: Melo only processes emails that explicitly match the topics and keywords you indicated. We do not process anything else.

Option 2: Manual Email Forwarding

Even if you've connected your email, some things are more ad-hoc. Birthday party invitations or special museum events happen all the time. When you set your pod up, you created a pod name which got turned into a forwarding address.

How to find your address:

Go to your pod page and look for Your Melo Email.

Your pod email address: [your-pod-name]@send.melo.fyi

How to forward:

  1. Open the email you want Melo to process

  2. Forward it to your pod email address

  3. Melo will analyze it and create relevant tasks/events

  4. You'll see the results in your Melo dashboard within a few minutes

Pro Tips on Forwarding:

  1. If you add context to an email you forward, that context will also get added to Melo. So if an email doesn't have all the information, you can just add it.

  2. We sometimes just send ourselves emails or brain dumps using this email method. Your own to do list, a reminder that you want to sign up to camp by the end of January or literally anything else that would help your family run. Try it.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

"Not seeing emails processed"

  1. Check your topic list - New items appear in "Archived Topics"

  2. Give it time - Processing can take a few minutes for large inboxes

  3. Check spam/promotions - Make sure school emails aren't in these folders

Best Practices for Email Integration

Use your main email account - Connect the inbox where you receive most school and family communications.

Don't worry about old emails - Melo focuses on recent and ongoing communications, not your entire email history.

Forward from multiple sources - If you and your partner both get school emails, forward important ones to your pod.

Ready for the Next Step?

Once your email is connected, Melo will start creating your first topics and tasks. If you're eager to check out what Melo can do, just forward an email to get a preview.

Check out our guide on [Understanding Topics and Tasks] to make the most of what Melo finds for you.

Still having trouble? Reach out to our support team - we're parents too and know how frustrating tech issues can be when you're trying to stay organized.

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