Email Integration Privacy: How Melo Handles Your Inbox
Connecting your email to Melo is one of our most powerful features, and we know it's also where you might have the biggest privacy concerns. Here's exactly how we handle your email data, what we access, and how we protect your information.
What We Access When You Connect Your Email
Only what you tell us to:
When you connect your email, the next screen will ask you to list keywords. We recommend that those keywords be specific enough so that only what's relevant to family logistics gets through.
What this does in the background is search specifically for those keywords. If an email does not contain those keywords, it does not make it to Melo and is not processed in any way.
Keyword recommendations
Name or nickname of schools your kids go to.
Name of sports team or coach.
Community hubs like a YMCA or the local library for events.
To make this point clear - if you don't provide any keywords, no emails will automatically be processed by Melo through Gmail's API.
You can also manually forward emails to Melo using the unique email address that can be found in your pod page.
Secure Connection
OAuth authentication: We connect to your email using the same secure method that major apps use - we never see or store your email password.
Read-only: Melo cannot send emails on your behalf.
Encrypted transmission: All email data is encrypted when transmitted between your email provider and Melo.
In order to access email data through Google’s Gmail API, Melo needed to meet Google's high security standards which is measured by a third party security review. Melo will need to pass this review yearly.
Limited Access
If you choose to connect your email, we'll ask how far back you want to go. Our default is 30 days back. We won't request Gmail to search for historical emails beyond 30 days.
What We Do With Email Data
Immediate Processing
Email arrives and Melo checks to see if it contains the specific keywords you've inserted. If it doesn't, that email doesn't get stored or processed in any way.
If relevant, we extract key information (dates, tasks, events).
Create organized topics grouping related information together.
Generate tasks and calendar events based on what we found.
AI Analysis
Smart understanding: We use AI to understand context and extract meaningful information. Our LLM of choice is Anthropic specifically since they have the highest bar for safety and privacy of all LLM providers.
Disconnecting Email Integration
If you ever want to disconnect your email:
Go to Pod Settings and select your name.
Find "Automated Emails"
Click the trash icon to remove your email connection.
Contact Us About Email Privacy
Questions about email integration? Contact us at [email protected]
Concerned about specific emails? Let us know if our system processed something it shouldn't have.
Want to report an issue? We take email privacy seriously and want to know about any problems.
Helpful, not creepy: We built email integration to make your life easier, not to invade your privacy. You're always in control of what Melo can access and how your email data is used.