Synamail — the Outlook Add-in

Synamail brings your Synaplan workspace straight into Microsoft Outlook. It is generally available with an updated taskpane interface: open an email and — without leaving your inbox — summarise it, translate it, draft a reply, classify it, save it to your knowledge base, ask follow-up questions, and build Contact AI Profiles. When you are composing, the Writing assistant turns a one-line intent into a full draft in the open message.

It works in Outlook on the Web (any browser, on Windows, macOS, and Linux), new Outlook for Windows, classic Outlook 2024, and Outlook on Mac. On Linux you simply use Outlook in the browser (and can install it as a PWA) — the add-in runs in the same web runtime.

Two ways to get it: install the certified app from Microsoft AppSource (one click, for everyone), or run it from source / self-host it from the open-source repository at github.com/metadist/Synamail (Apache-2.0). Production add-in assets are served from https://addin.synaplan.com.

What it can do

Capability What you get
Summarise A short, bullet-point summary of any long email.
Translate Read an email in your language.
Draft reply A ready-to-edit reply, in the tone you pick (formal / concise / friendly).
Classify Auto-tag an email (invoice, support, personal, …) for your own triage.
Ask follow-ups A chat about the current thread that remembers context.
Save to knowledge base Store an email + attachments into a Synaplan RAG group for later recall.
Contact AI Profiling Build a rolling AI profile of a correspondent (tone, stable facts, open items) — only when you choose to add an email to that contact.
Find meeting times Suggest meeting slots from the thread context.
Writing assistant In compose mode: turn a one-line intent into a full email body written into the open draft.

How it connects

Synamail never reads or sends your mail in the background. It only acts when you click an action, and only then does the relevant email content reach your Synaplan workspace. Sign-in is a normal OAuth round-trip to your Synaplan server (cloud at web.synaplan.com, or your own self-hosted instance) — you never copy or paste an API key. The key it stores is per-mailbox, encrypted at rest by Exchange, and revocable any time from your Synaplan account's API-keys page.

Outlook  ──(you click an action)──►  Synamail panel  ──►  https://web.synaplan.com/api/v1
   ▲                                                              │
   └──────────────  AI result rendered in the panel  ◄───────────┘

Contact AI Profiling is served by the optional synamail Synaplan plugin on your server (plugins/synamail/). Without that plugin, the rest of the add-in still works; profiling actions explain that the plugin is missing.

Install it

For everyday users (AppSource)

  1. Open Outlook and open any email.
  2. Click the Apps icon in the email toolbar (or Get Add-ins).
  3. Search for Synamail → Add.
  4. Click Open Synamail → Sign in to Synaplan → done.

If your work mailbox restricts add-ins, ask your IT admin to enable the certified Synamail app in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

For developers / self-hosters

Clone and run from source, or point a build at your own Synaplan instance:

git clone https://github.com/metadist/Synamail.git
cd Synamail
make bootstrap     # enable git hooks + install deps
make doctor        # verify your toolchain
make ci-local      # lint + type-check + tests + manifest validate + build
make dev           # serve the taskpane on https://localhost:3000
make sideload      # register the manifest into Outlook

Self-hosted Synaplan? In the add-in's sign-in screen, click "Use a self-hosted instance" and enter your server URL before signing in.

Requirements

  • A Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online or Outlook.com mailbox (Outlook add-ins do not load against plain IMAP/Gmail accounts).
  • A Synaplan account — on web.synaplan.com or a self-hosted instance.
  • For Contact AI Profiling: the synamail plugin installed on that Synaplan server.

Privacy

  • Nothing leaves Outlook until you click an action.
  • Email content is sent to your Synaplan workspace only for the action you trigger.
  • Contact profiles live only in your Synaplan workspace and can be deleted anytime from Outlook or the web UI.
  • The connection key is stored securely per-mailbox and is revocable at any time.

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