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Otto sets rules by sender, subject or detected ads, tidies folders and ads on its own, and keeps to fixed sending limits.

Contents Docs overview

Mailbox · Rules, tidying & limits

What runs on its own — and where it stops

Most of running a mailbox is upkeep. It runs on the side, every action ends up in the log — and three numbers apply without exception.

The three rule types

  • Sender

    A rule for a specific address — for example “always file mail from this address into this folder”.

  • Subject

    A rule that matches a snippet in the subject line.

  • Detected ads

    A rule that hooks into Otto’s own ad detection, not the sender.

What runs on the side

Folders
Filing into your folders, new ones only with your consent.
Ads
Unsubscribing on request — with a list of what would be cancelled, before anything happens.
Fraud
Forged senders and extortion mail get flagged, with a warning instead of a reply.
Absence
Holiday dates from your profile switch on the out-of-office note and mute anything non-urgent.

How this shows up in the log

An excerpt from the log re-enacted Re-enacted log excerpt with three rows: an ad email was filed, a draft to Möbelwerk Reinhardt is waiting for approval, and the approved reply was sent — each row with a time, result and reason.

A simplified excerpt — in the app, every row also carries a trigger and the full wording behind a disclosure.

The hard limits

Sending Bulk sending
Blocked, not a setting: at most 20 recipients per message, 50 messages per hour. Otto never sends cold outreach at all (§ 7 UWG, German unfair-competition law).
Deleting Removing for good
Stays with you: removed mail sits in the trash for 30 days before it is really gone.
Credentials Passwords
Live in the system keychain — never in the database, never with the language model.
Uncertainty Otto is unsure
Then it does not send — the draft goes to approval, even on autopilot.

Known gaps in this documentation build (as of 25 Sept 2026)

  • Automatic provider detection while typing an address is built in, but not yet covered by its own automated test — so nothing here is claimed about its hit rate.
  • The same gap applies to the built-in IMAP defaults per provider (iCloud, GMX, Web.de and others): they exist in the source code, but not in a checked table.

Back to the mailbox overview Help — when a connection is stuck