How connecting Gmail actually works
Connecting takes about thirty seconds and never involves handing over a password. Behind the short consent screen, a specific sequence sets DraftKite up to watch your inbox:
- You click Connect Gmail and land on Google's own consent screen, where you approve permission to read mail, manage labels and create drafts. Calendar read access is optional and requested separately.
- Google issues a scoped token — not your password — which DraftKite stores encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The token is limited to exactly what you approved and nothing more.
- DraftKite registers a watch on your mailbox, so Google pushes a Pub/Sub notification the instant anything changes, instead of DraftKite polling on a timer.
- On each notification, DraftKite pulls only the new messages through Gmail's History API using a saved cursor — never a bulk re-download of your whole mailbox.
- Each new message is classified, labeled and — when a reply fits — drafted straight into your Gmail Drafts for you to approve.
Labels, not folders
Gmail organises mail with labels rather than folders, and DraftKite leans into that model completely. A message can carry several labels at once, so DraftKite's category sits alongside anything you or your own filters already applied — it never moves a message out of Primary or hides it from Gmail's Social and Promotions tabs. Everything stays where Gmail put it; DraftKite only adds a coloured label on top.
What actually gets a label
Classification maps each incoming message to one category and, where it's warranted, a draft. A rough guide to what that looks like day to day:
| Incoming mail | Example label | Typical action |
|---|---|---|
| Sales or new-business enquiry | Sales | Draft a reply, grounded in your pricing |
| Support or how-to question | Support | Draft an answer from your knowledge base |
| Invoice or receipt | Finance | Label only — usually no draft |
| Newsletter or notification | Updates | Label only, left for later |
Drafts that live inside Gmail
Every reply DraftKite writes is a genuine Gmail draft, threaded under the original conversation with the quoted history intact. Because it opens in the Gmail web app, the iOS and Android apps, and any IMAP client, you can edit and send from wherever you already work. DraftKite holds no send permission of its own, so a draft can only ever leave your account when you press send yourself.
Tone from your Sent mail, facts from your knowledge base
To sound like you rather than a generic assistant, DraftKite reads a sample of your previously sent Gmail once and extracts your vocabulary, typical sentence length and sign-off. Add a knowledge base — product docs, pricing, a support FAQ — and replies are grounded in those facts rather than guessed, which is what keeps drafts accurate on the details that matter to your business.
Your connection is encrypted at rest and hosted in the EU (Frankfurt). Disconnect inside DraftKite or revoke access from your Google Account at any time — either one immediately invalidates the stored token.