The Ping Email Assistant helps you manage your inbox by automatically labeling or categorizing new emails, creating first drafts, and organizing messages based on context. It lives directly inside your email and can be customized from your Ping settings.
Connect Your Email Account
Before using the email assistant, you’ll need to connect your email and enable the feature.
Follow these steps:
- Click Settings in the bottom-left corner of Ping.
- Select Email Assistant.
- Connect your email account using Google or Outlook.
- Turn on the Ping Email Assistant.
Once enabled, additional customization options will appear below.
What Your Inbox Looks Like
After connecting, Ping automatically enhances your inbox with smart organization tools.
Ping will:
- Add labels or categories to emails based on context.
- Create automatic first drafts for emails that likely need a reply.
- Mark emails that require action with a To Respond label or category.
When you open a To Respond email, you’ll see a draft response already written for you. Ping pulls from client memory, including past emails and meetings, to generate relevant and accurate replies.
Understanding Email Labels and Categories
Ping uses labels in Gmail and categories in Outlook to help you quickly scan your inbox:
- To Respond for emails that need a reply.
- FYI, Notifications, and Meetings for informational emails that don’t require action.
These labels and categories make it easier to focus on what matters most.
Control What Stays in Your Inbox
If you prefer not to see certain types of emails in your main inbox, you can customize this behavior.
Follow these steps:
- Open Settings in Ping.
- Scroll to the email filtering options under Email Assistant.
- Choose which email types stay in your inbox and which ones skip it, such as Marketing emails or Meeting updates.
- Click Save.
Those emails will no longer appear in your main inbox.
Customize Email Drafting Preferences
You can fine-tune how Ping writes emails on your behalf.
In the Email Drafting Preferences, you can:
- Select your preferred email length.
- Choose an email tone, such as friendly or concise.
- Add custom instructions to guide how Ping writes.
- Use Generate My Tone to build a tone profile from your sent emails.
Email signatures are managed separately in Settings > General > Email Signature.
How Email Signatures Work
Ping appends your saved signature to any email it sets as a draft in Gmail or Outlook.
Drafts shown inside Ask Ping show the email body only. They do not show your sign-off or signature. When you move the draft into Gmail or Outlook, Ping adds your saved signature at the end.
Email Assistant drafts also use the saved signature exactly as configured in Ping. Tone settings and Generate My Tone affect the draft body, not the saved signature.
For more detail, see the How to Set Up Your Email Signature help article.
The more you use the email assistant, the better it adapts to your writing style over time.
Email Assistant vs Ask Ping Email Drafts
Email Assistant and Ask Ping can both help with email, but they are meant for different moments.
Email Assistant is the automated inbox helper. It can label or categorize new messages and create first drafts for emails that likely need a response.
Ask Ping is more like a drafting canvas. You can use it to write a new email thread, create a more custom draft, or pull in context from a meeting, client, or previous email before you write.
Once you are happy with an Ask Ping draft, you can pass it into your connected mailbox and review it there before sending.
They can work together. Use Email Assistant for automatic labeling and first drafts. Use Ask Ping when you want more control over what you are writing or when the draft is not tied to one incoming email.
What Email Assistant Does Not Do
- It does not guarantee every email will get a draft.
- It does not send email without you.
- It does not replace your review of client-facing messages.
- It does not process emails that it cannot access.
When Labels or Drafts May Not Appear
Labels or drafts may not appear if Email Assistant is turned off, your email connection needs to be reconnected, your admin has not approved the app, or the email does not look like it needs a response.
Older emails are not automatically drafted just because you turn the feature on. Email Assistant is mainly for email Ping receives after the feature is enabled.
Final Notes
The Ping Email Assistant is designed to save time and reduce inbox stress by handling drafts and organization for you. As you continue using it, the experience becomes more personalized and accurate.
If you have questions or feedback, let us know. We’re always improving the experience.