How To Summarize An Email In Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail & More

Long emails and threads can be very tedious to look at and reading from line to line takes a lot of time, but sometimes having a way of summarizing recent emails can help a lot. The good news is that most email outlets like Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail all have built‑in ways to summarize emails. You can also connect those summaries with AI summaries of your meetings using Summary AI.

Why summarizing your email helps

Long emails and sprawling threads hide what you actually need to do. A good email summary should answer three questions in a few lines:

• What is this email about?
• What decisions or key points are in it?
• What, if anything, do I need to do by when?

Creating a summary is a basic skill everyone should learn, but nowadays AI tools found in your inbox can usually generate these email summaries for you automatically. Summarizing your recent emails and extracting the key points of it can make it easier to manage your day and focus on the messages that matter most.

Summarize recent emails in Outlook using Copilot

If you use Outlook with Copilot enabled, you already have an AI email summarizer built in.

How to summarize an email in Outlook

Summarizing emails using Outlook is pretty straightforward. Follow the steps below to learn how to do it.

1. Open Outlook on your usual browser or app.
2. Click the long email or conversation you want to summarize.
3. At the top of the thread, look for something like Summary by Copilot or the Copilot icon. It may appear as simply just Summary.
4. Click Summarize. Outlook asks Copilot to read the thread and generate a short recap about the messages. You can find this above every message individually.

Finally you can read the the summary. This usually includes:

• The main topic of the thread
• Key points and decisions
• Any follow ups or tasks you should know about

In some Outlook experiences, the summary includes small reference markers that let you jump straight to the email where each point comes from. This makes it easy to check details without rereading the whole thread.

Why Outlook email summaries are useful

Summarizing recent emails in Outlook is useful for many obvious reasons. Here are some of the main ones:

• you can catch up quickly after time away from your inbox
• you can see updates from a long conversation without reading every reply
• you can decide which threads need a response and which can be archived.

If you often find yourself wishing someone would just summarize your emails I would recommend turning on your outlook Copilot and trying it out.

Summarize recent emails in Gmail using Gemini

Something that’s becoming more and more popular and what’s starting to appear in more accounts over time is Google’s Gemini. Gemini can also be used to summarize emails.

How to summarize an email in Gmail

Summarizing emails in Gmail is just as easy to do as in Outlook. Here are the steps you need to take:

• Open Gmail in your browser or mobile app.
• Click or tap on the email thread you want summarized.
• At the top of the email, look for an option that sounds like AI Overview or AI Summary.
• Select the summarization option. Gemini scans the conversation and generates a short explanation of what the email is about.

Read your summary to see:

• The core topic of the email
• Any requests, deadlines or other important notes like what you still need to do
• The general tone and outcome of the conversation

You can also follow up questions from AI if you need more help like, You can ask something like “What do I need to do next?” if you need a more focused list of tasks and actions to take.

Why Gmail summaries are useful

• They help you understand complex threads with lots of replies.
• You can quickly see whether an email requires action from you.
• You can reduce the time you spend scrolling through long chains.

If what your goal is is to get a summary of your most recent Gmail email is, then I would say the best option for you is Gemini’s summarization.

Summarizing emails in Apple Mail with Apple Intelligence

On supported Apple devices, Apple Intelligence adds email summary features directly into the Mail app.

How to summarize an email in Apple Mail on iPhone

Before trying to summarize emails on your iPhone, make sure your device supports Apple Intelligence and that it’s turned on.

1. Open the Mail app and look at your inbox. Some messages may already show small summary text under the subject line.
2. Tap an email or thread you want to summarize.
3. At the top of the message, tap Summarize. Or you can also use the Apple Intelligence summary control.
4. Mail displays a neat summary of the message or entire conversation at the top of the screen.

How to summarize an email in Apple Mail on Mac

Summarizing emails works very similarly on Mac.

1. Open Mail on a Mac that supports Apple Intelligence.
2. In the inbox, look for summary previews under email subjects.Don’t be surprised if you can’t find it, this option might not be available everywhere.
3. Click an email to open it.
4. Click the summary button at the top of the message to generate a full summary.
5. Read the summary to see the key points and any important details.

Why Apple Mail summaries are useful

Apple summaries are very useful because they save you a lot of time.

• They allow you to quickly look through your inbox using summaries instead of reading every single message.
• You can quickly decide which email is most important.
• You can also get a better sense of long threads without expanding every message.

Apple intelligence is designed for you if you use Apple Mail, and often need help with summarizing emails.

How to summarize an email without built in AI

Even if your browser doesn’t have a built in AI, like the ones mentioned above, you can still summarize emails quickly.

Here’s a simple structure that can help you with this. You can achieve it in four simple steps:

1. First of all state the purpose. In one sentence, try to say what the email is about. For example you may summarize the main topic of an email by writing something like “This email is a project update about the Q2 launch timeline.”
2. Next list the main points of the email. Add three to five points that cover the most important information.
3. To summarize your email, next figure out and make a decision of the main priority of the email. Note down actions and deadlines. Write down what you need to do and by when.

You can keep this summary in your notes or paste it at the top of your reply. This way others can understand your thought process. If you use a general AI assistant, you can paste what’s in the email and ask it to follow this pattern.

Summarize more than emails with Summary AI

If you’re constantly in a hurry you need to summarize your emails and you need to create transcriptions and summaries of your meetings. These two things will save you a lot of time in your work. Summary AI can join your meetings and summarize them so you get a nice clean set of notes at the end of each with clear follow-ups and action items. That way, your team always knows exactly what to do.