Inbox Zero - your 24/7 AI email assistant

Organizes your inbox, pre-drafts replies, and tracks follow‑ups - so you reach inbox zero faster. Open source alternative to Fyxer, but more customisable and secure.
Website · Discord · Issues

Mission

To help you spend less time in your inbox, so you can focus on what matters.

Features

• AI Personal Assistant: Organizes your inbox and pre-drafts replies in your tone and style.
• Cursor Rules for email: Explain in plain English how your AI should handle your inbox.
• Reply Zero: Track emails to reply to and those awaiting responses.
• Smart Categories: Automatically categorize every sender.
• Bulk Unsubscriber: One-click unsubscribe and archive emails you never read.
• Cold Email Blocker: Auto‑block cold emails.
• Email Analytics: Track your activity and trends over time.

Learn more in our docs.

Feature Screenshots

AI Assistant	Reply Zero
Gmail client	Bulk Unsubscriber

Demo Video

Built with

• Next.js
• Tailwind CSS
• shadcn/ui
• Prisma
• Upstash
• Turborepo

Star History

Feature Requests

To request a feature open a GitHub issue, or join our Discord.

Getting Started

We offer a hosted version of Inbox Zero at https://getinboxzero.com.

Self-Hosting with Docker

The easiest way to self-host Inbox Zero is using our pre-built Docker image.

See our Self-Hosting Guide for complete instructions.

Local Development Setup

Here's a video on how to set up the project. It covers the same steps mentioned in this document. But goes into greater detail on setting up the external services.

Requirements

• Node.js >= 22.0.0
• pnpm >= 10.0.0
• Docker desktop (recommended for running Postgres and Redis)

Quick Start

1. Start PostgreSQL and Redis:

   docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d

2. Install dependencies and set up environment:

   pnpm install

   Option A: Interactive CLI - Guides you through each step and auto-generates secrets

   npm run setup

   Option B: Manual setup - Copy the example file and edit it yourself

   cp apps/web/.env.example apps/web/.env
   # Generate secrets with: openssl rand -hex 32

3. Run database migrations:

   cd apps/web
   pnpm prisma migrate dev

4. Run the development server:

   pnpm dev

The app will be available at http://localhost:3000.

The sections below provide detailed setup instructions for OAuth and other services. For a comprehensive reference of all environment variables, see the Environment Variables Guide.

Google OAuth Setup

Go to Google Cloud Console and create a new project if necessary.

Create new credentials:

1. If the banner shows up, configure consent screen (if not, you can do this later)

   1. Click the banner, then Click Get Started.
   2. Choose a name for your app, and enter your email.
   3. In Audience, choose External
   4. Enter your contact information
   5. Agree to the User Data policy and then click Create.
   6. Return to APIs and Services using the left sidebar.

2. Create new credentials:

   1. Click the +Create Credentials button. Choose OAuth Client ID.
   2. In Application Type, Choose Web application
   3. Choose a name for your web client
   4. In Authorized JavaScript origins, add a URI and enter http://localhost:3000 (replace localhost:3000 with your domain in production)
   5. In Authorized redirect URIs enter (replace localhost:3000 with your domain in production):
   • http://localhost:3000/api/auth/callback/google
   • http://localhost:3000/api/google/linking/callback
   • http://localhost:3000/api/google/calendar/callback (only required for calendar integration)
   6. Click Create.
   7. A popup will show up with the new credentials, including the Client ID and secret.

3. Update .env file:

   1. Copy the Client ID to GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID
   2. Copy the Client secret to GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET

4. Update scopes

   1. Go to Data Access in the left sidebar (or click link above)
   2. Click Add or remove scopes
   3. Copy paste the below into the Manually add scopes box:

   https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile
   https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email
   https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify
   https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.settings.basic
   https://www.googleapis.com/auth/contacts
   https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar (only required for calendar integration)
   

   4. Click Update
   5. Click Save in the Data Access page.

5. Add yourself as a test user

   1. Go to Audience
   2. In the Test users section, click +Add users
   3. Enter your email and press Save

6. Enable required APIs in Google Cloud Console:

   • Google People API (required)
   • Google Calendar API (only required for calendar integration)

Google PubSub Setup

PubSub enables real-time email notifications. Follow the official guide:

1. Create a topic
2. Create a subscription
3. Grant publish rights on your topic

Set GOOGLE_PUBSUB_TOPIC_NAME in your .env file.

When creating the subscription, select Push and set the URL to: https://yourdomain.com/api/google/webhook?token=TOKEN

Set GOOGLE_PUBSUB_VERIFICATION_TOKEN in your .env file to the value of TOKEN.

For local development, use ngrok to expose your local server:

ngrok http 3000

Then update the webhook endpoint in the Google PubSub subscriptions dashboard.

Scheduled tasks: Gmail/Outlook watch subscriptions and meeting briefs require periodic execution. If using Docker Compose, this is handled automatically by the cron container. Otherwise, set up cron jobs for /api/watch/all (every 6 hours) and /api/meeting-briefs (every 15 minutes). See Self-Hosting Guide.

Microsoft OAuth Setup

Go to Microsoft Azure Portal and create a new Azure Active Directory app registration:

1. Navigate to Azure Active Directory

2. Go to "App registrations" in the left sidebar or search it in the searchbar

3. Click "New registration"

   1. Choose a name for your application
   2. Under "Supported account types" select one of:
      • Multitenant (default): "Accounts in any organizational directory (Any Azure AD directory - Multitenant) and personal Microsoft accounts (e.g. Skype, Xbox)" - allows any Microsoft account
      • Single tenant: "Accounts in this organizational directory only" - restricts to your organization only
   3. Set the Redirect URI:
      • Platform: Web
      • URL: http://localhost:3000/api/auth/callback/microsoft (replace localhost:3000 with your domain in production)
   4. Click "Register"
   5. In the "Manage" menu click "Authentication (Preview)"
   6. Add the following Redirect URIs (replace localhost:3000 with your domain in production):
      • http://localhost:3000/api/outlook/linking/callback
      • http://localhost:3000/api/outlook/calendar/callback (only required for calendar integration)

4. Get your credentials from the Overview tab:

   1. Copy the "Application (client) ID" → this is your MICROSOFT_CLIENT_ID
   2. If using single tenant, copy the "Directory (tenant) ID" → this is your MICROSOFT_TENANT_ID
   3. Go to "Certificates & secrets" in the left sidebar
      • Click "New client secret"
      • Add a description and choose an expiry
      • Click "Add"
      • Copy the Value → this is your MICROSOFT_CLIENT_SECRET (Important: copy Value, not Secret ID)

5. Configure API permissions:

   1. In the "Manage" menu click "API permissions" in the left sidebar

   2. Click "Add a permission"

   3. Select "Microsoft Graph"

   4. Select "Delegated permissions"

   5. Add the following permissions:

      • openid
      • profile
      • email
      • User.Read
      • offline_access
      • Mail.ReadWrite
      • Mail.Send (only required if NEXT_PUBLIC_EMAIL_SEND_ENABLED=true, which is the default)
      • MailboxSettings.ReadWrite
      • Calendars.Read (only required for calendar integration)
      • Calendars.ReadWrite (only required for calendar integration)

   6. Click "Add permissions"

   7. Click "Grant admin consent" if you're an admin

6. Update your .env file with the credentials:

   MICROSOFT_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id_here
   MICROSOFT_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret_here
   MICROSOFT_TENANT_ID=your_tenant_id_here  # Only needed for single tenant, omit for multitenant
   

LLM Setup

In your .env file, uncomment one of the LLM provider blocks and add your API key:

• Anthropic
• OpenAI
• Google Gemini
• OpenRouter
• Vercel AI Gateway
• AWS Bedrock
• Groq

Users can also change the model in the app on the /settings page.

Local Production Build

To test a production build locally:

# Without Docker
pnpm run build
pnpm start

# With Docker (includes Postgres and Redis)
NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000 docker compose --profile all up --build

Self-Hosting

For production deployments, see our guides:

• Self-Hosting Guide
• AWS EC2 Deployment
• AWS Copilot (ECS/Fargate)

Contributing to the project

You can view open tasks in our GitHub Issues. Join our Discord to discuss tasks and check what's being worked on.

ARCHITECTURE.md explains the architecture of the project (LLM generated).

Releases

Docker images are automatically built on every push to main and tagged with the commit SHA (e.g., elie222/inbox-zero:abc1234). The latest tag always points to the most recent main build.

For formal releases, we create GitHub Releases with version tags (e.g., v2.26.0) which also trigger Docker builds with that version tag.