Onboarding & Setup
When you first sign in, MailPrism walks you through a short guided setup. It has three steps, and you can leave and come back — your progress is saved.
The three steps
| Step | What you do |
|---|---|
| 1. Connect Gmail | Link the Gmail account you want to automate. |
| 2. Create Rules | Build your first automation, or start from a template. |
| 3. Go Live | Turn automation on and head to your dashboard. |
The progress bar at the top shows where you are. Completed steps are checked, and you can click back to any step you've finished.
Step 1 — Connect Gmail
Click Connect Gmail and approve access in Google's own window. MailPrism never sees your password.
→ Full detail on access and permissions: Connecting Gmail
Skip for now skips the whole setup — it marks onboarding done and takes you to the dashboard. Connect Gmail later from Settings → Gmail Accounts. Automation won't run until an account is connected.
Step 2 — Create Rules
A rule tells MailPrism how to handle matching email automatically. You have two ways to start:
- Browse Templates — pick a ready-made rule (for example, Archive Newsletters, Priority Inbox, or Auto-Label) and adjust it.
- Create Custom Rule — build one from scratch.
→ A guided walkthrough: Create your first rule · Ready-made rules: Rule Library
You can also choose I'll create rules later and move straight to the final step.
Step 3 — Go Live
The last step shows a checklist — Gmail connected and First rule created — so you can see what's done. Click Activate & Go to Dashboard to turn automation on.
From here, your rules run as new mail arrives. Timing controls such as quiet hours live in Settings → Rule Defaults & Safety (the Quiet Hours and Execution Settings cards). You can test any rule manually from its Edit page (open it from Rules), and review or undo what rules did from the Rule Logs.
→ See How rules work for the full processing and timing model.
Quiet the noise (optional)
The first time you open the dashboard after setup, MailPrism takes you to a second, optional one-screen setup: noise defaults. It's a curated list of senders that most people don't need to act on — automated sign-in receipts, security-scan digests, marketing emails, bot and CI notifications, calendar reminders, and one-time account emails.
How it works
- Every suggested sender starts checked. Leave the ones you want quieted checked, and uncheck any you'd rather keep seeing.
- Use Select all or Select none to start from either extreme.
- Click Apply N rules (N is how many you left checked) to add your selection, or Skip for now to dismiss the screen. Either way you land on your dashboard and won't be sent here again.
Each suggestion has a mode that controls how strictly it's quieted:
| Mode | What it means |
|---|---|
| Mute | Don't surface this sender as something to act on. |
| Mute first only | Skip only the first message in a thread; follow-ups are tracked normally. |
| Alerts only | Keep it visible in your digest, but don't flag every message. |
| Always track | Keep tracking it normally. |
Words like breach, suspended, or payment failed are never quieted — even from a sender you've muted, an urgent message still reaches you.
These defaults set up your tracking profile, which decides which conversations MailPrism watches for follow-ups. You can edit, add, or remove any of them later from Settings → Tracking Profile.
→ Learn more about follow-up tracking: Response tracking
Where to go next
| If you want to… | Read |
|---|---|
| Get oriented in the app | Your dashboard |
| Understand rules in depth | How rules work |
| Turn on AI sorting | AI features |
| Tune what gets tracked | Response tracking |