Drafting a reply

What this does

Task menu ▸ Reply

Reads the selected email including its chain and produces a reply from it.

Nothing is sent. What you get is an ordinary reply draft that you read, change and send yourself – or discard.

How it goes

1. Select the email – highlighted in the list or opened. Either works.
2. Invoke Reply.
3. Enter additional instructions – or leave the field empty for the most likely substantive response.
4. Choose a writing style – one of your saved styles, or None.

The instructions field is the step that matters

Left empty, the model guesses what you want to say. For a meeting request that is often an acceptance – even when you meant to decline.

So write briefly what should go in: "decline, no capacity until May" or "accept Tuesday, ask for an agenda". Half a sentence is enough and changes the result completely.

What to check before sending

• Commitments. The draft may agree to something you are not prepared to agree to.
• Dates and figures. They can be picked up wrongly from the chain.
• Recipients. A draft replies to the message – check that this is the right circle.
• Attachments the text refers to are not attached automatically.

When it does not work

• "No email is selected." – click a message in the list or open one.
• "The selected item is not an email." – it is an appointment, a task or a contact.
• "No unanswered or answered-but-unread emails found in the selection." – there is nothing in the selection that it makes sense to reply to.