Find it by what it was about
You rarely remember the filename. You remember that a supplier sent a quote before the summer, or that the contract came from the legal contact. Searching the mailbox by sender, period and subject narrows it to a handful of threads, and reading those threads finds the one — which is the pass you would otherwise do by hand.
“Find the quote the supplier sent before the summer and tell me the price.”
“Which emails from this client have a PDF attached?”
Attachments come back as files
This is the part that matters: the attachment is returned as binary, not as a filename. So the answer can quote the amount in the invoice, the date in the contract or the reference in the delivery note, rather than telling you a document exists and leaving you to open it.
An email is a thread
The attachment usually arrives mid-conversation, and its meaning is in the exchange around it — which version was final, what was agreed after it was sent. Reading the thread rather than the single message is what stops an answer quoting a quote that was superseded two messages later.
Across every mailbox at once
Documents scatter: the quote came to your professional address, the signed copy to the shared box. Because the same tools cover Gmail, Outlook and any IMAP mailbox, one question can look in all of them instead of you guessing which inbox it landed in.
Reading does not move anything
Searching, reading and downloading have no visible effect on the mailbox: nothing is marked read for anyone, nothing is filed, nothing is deleted. Moving or trashing a message is a separate action you ask for explicitly.
Then do something with it
Once the file is read, the useful follow-up is usually a comparison or a draft: does this invoice match the quote, write the reply that disputes the difference. That is the point at which finding the attachment stops being a search and becomes work done.
Common questions
Can ChatGPT read a PDF attached to an email?
Yes. Attachments come back as files, so the content is read and quoted rather than reported as present.
Can it search several mailboxes?
Yes. Each action names the mailbox, and one question can cross a personal address, a work one and a shared box.
Does it work on a custom-domain mailbox?
Yes, generic IMAP is a first-class provider alongside Gmail and Outlook.
Will it delete or move messages?
Only if you ask. Searching and reading have no visible effect on the mailbox.
How Email works with Nilyo
Connection. Gmail and Microsoft 365/Outlook through their official sign-in (the “Unipile” name appears on the consent screen: Unipile SAS operates the connection). Any other mailbox through IMAP/SMTP: OVH, Zoho, iCloud, IONOS, Infomaniak, Fastmail, Yahoo, GMX and self-hosted servers.
What your agent can do. Folders and labels, listing and searching messages, reading with attachments, drafts, sending and true replies, moving and labelling, contacts on Gmail and Microsoft.
Pacing and safety. No local budget; provider limits apply. IMAP mailboxes are read live, so listings are paged (50 messages max per page).
- “How many emails today” uses the folder counts of the mailbox; “today” is a date filter, never a guess.
- On IMAP a message id changes after a move; Nilyo returns the new id so the agent keeps working on the right message.
All Email guides
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