Luci's Inbox Helper

Luci's Inbox Helper turns up to 10 noisy inboxes into a calmer decision list. Instead of only summarizing email, it helps you decide what needs a reply, what is urgent, what should become a task, and what can wait.

Quick start

Easiest Terminal flow

Clone the repo and start Luci:

git clone https://github.com/LucianaMa1/EmailInboxHelper.git
cd EmailInboxHelper
npm run easy:start

What it does:

• installs dependencies automatically on first run
• starts the local server
• opens http://localhost:3030

Keep that Terminal window open while Luci is running.

Mac double-click flow

If you do not want to type commands after cloning, open the folder in Finder and double-click:

Open Luci.command

That launches the same guided startup flow.

First-time setup if needed

If you only want to install everything first:

npm run setup

Then later you can run:

npm start

Before setup

• Node.js 20+ and npm
• At least one email account you can access through IMAP
• For Gmail, turn on IMAP and create an app password with 2-step verification enabled Official docs: Gmail IMAP setup Official docs: Google app passwords
• If you plan to use Google app integration, create a Google app secret Official docs: Create Google OAuth credentials
• If you want AI summaries and draft replies, prepare one LLM API key Official docs: Qwen / Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, Kimi / Moonshot, OpenAI, Claude / Anthropic

Setup

Luci's Setup page has three parts:

1. Connect email
2. Connect AI
3. Learn category

1. Connect email

For each inbox you add, fill in:

• Provider
• Email address
• IMAP host
• Port
• Password or app password
• Folder
• Sync size

Tips:

• Gmail usually needs an app password, not your normal Gmail password
• Outlook may work with your Microsoft password or an app password if 2FA is enabled
• Yahoo works best with an app password
• QQ Mail and 163 Mail usually require IMAP enabled plus an authorization code
• For custom IMAP, the most common secure port is 993

2. Connect AI

This step is optional. If you want summaries and draft replies, choose:

• Provider: OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), DeepSeek, Kimi / Moonshot, or Qwen
• Model: keep the suggested default unless you want a different model
• API key: paste the key from your provider console

3. Learn category

This step is optional. Add one author or newsletter per line to the Author whitelist if you want Luci to treat those senders as learning sources.

Final step

After filling everything in:

1. Click test connections
2. Click save settings

What Luci does

• syncs your inbox locally
• surfaces urgent messages first
• highlights emails waiting on your reply
• separates useful newsletters from low-value promo noise

License

MIT