path: root/2025/captions/emacsconf-2025-gmail--orggmail-a-deep-integration-of-gmail-into-your-org-mode--bala-ramadurai--answers.vtt

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I first of all want to address the feedback.

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You're absolutely right. I should have stuck to one theme.

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Unfortunately, I was using vanilla Emacs

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and not my own config.

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So to show that it can work, apologies for that.

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I will keep that in mind the next time I do such a demo.

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The first question, I mean, the feedback was considered

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using similar background dark only

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or light only throughout the help,

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throughout the help with iStream.

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The question, the first question is,

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should I know all my contact email address by heart

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or is some kind of contact list?

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Unfortunately, right now, this is just to get started.

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So it is, you have to know it by heart,

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but I take this as feedback.

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I will write this down for myself as a feature request.

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I will make sure that all contacts

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or some kind of tab support is present for email addresses.

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I do not use the org system for replying so much.

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I use it for knowing the context.

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So I don't really reply using the org mode itself to reply.

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So I did not focus on that feature. But this is doable.

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We can certainly add a tab support

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for any contacts that you may have, org contacts.

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Or I don't know if there's any other package that does that.

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So if it is, let me know.

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Org contacts is what comes to my mind.

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The second question is, what would it take

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to use the org pieces of this with?

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offline IMAP or other non Gmail mail setups.

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I use fast mail.

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Currently, I use only Gmail because that's my workflow

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and it works with a Gmail API.

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So which means the Python script that goes along with it

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only works with Gmail and no other system for now.

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This is the current package.

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However, yes, I will note this down.

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I don't know what it will take

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to include this offline IMAP setup

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or any other non-Gmail setup.

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Let me tinker with it and find out what it will involve.

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So give me some time, maybe I will get to it.

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Sorry, sorry. Oops. Okay. Okay. May I continue?

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Hi, Bella. Yes, please. Sorry for the confusion.

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Hi, Amin. All right. So the next one is,

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do you worry about sending some info to a wrong person

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due to some unseen technical issues,

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for example, due to memory overflow?

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Again, I have not been focusing

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on replying from within Emacs.

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so much, or using my package,

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I usually do it through the Gmail interface.

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I usually use this to get the context within the project,

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download all the emails, make sure that I have acted on emails

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which Gmail doesn't do so well.

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I don't know what the action is.

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I don't want to use Gmail as a to-do list.

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Org Mode is great at this.

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Any work I have to do, any reports I have to compile,

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all of that Org Mode does. I don't use it for replying

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or doing its actions around the email, which I focus on.

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But point taken, let me see

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if there is a like Gmail offers.

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you know, for 10 seconds or something you can still undo

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so that it doesn't go out of your email

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if you made a mistake or if there's a problem with your,

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you know, Gmail or email sending should sort of stop.

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Let me think about that.

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So, I've not paid attention to that,

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but I'll take your point.

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The next one, you should say what org-gmail is

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and not its goals and non-goals,

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which in this case is more helpful

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to help people get their head around this.

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You had some good ones in your slides,

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but not your GitHub page. Okay, great.

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Okay, so I will definitely take

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the information from the slides

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and give it to, I mean, put it back into my readme.

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It's been a while since I updated ReadMe,

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and you're absolutely right.

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It probably doesn't say why you need org email.

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So that would be definitely something that I can do.

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Wanting to add the goal is an easier way

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to add one-off email into org mode

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and org agenda workflows and first.

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Love seeing a different way

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of looking at and working with email.

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Thank you so much for that.

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Yes, that's the idea here is if we can integrate email

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and I think there is memacs, you know,

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that's one package that I love.

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It can integrate all of the other stuff into your org mode.

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That worked, but I like email and dealing with email.

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That is my single source of truth outside of org mode.

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So that's the only one I need for now.

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And I like seeing the action

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and the history on my org agenda.

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That's one of the reasons why I built this package.

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And I hope that answers that.

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There is one more saying, how does it handle attachments?

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If it doesn't, do you have a plan to add this feature?

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Attachments is a bit tricky for me right now

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because I don't understand org-attach so well.

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I don't use org-attach, but you're absolutely right.

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It does make sense to have org-attach also.

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And it's definitely in my plan to include org-attach.

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I don't think I talked about it in my talk,

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but I definitely have that idea.

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First I have to wrap myself, my head

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around the idea of org-attach and how it,

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because I don't like, what I don't like about org-attach,

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I'll tell you, is default is,

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it opens a new folder called data

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and there are, it uses a unique code

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and there are subfolders in it, which I do not appreciate

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because I want all those files also to be within the same context.

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of my project or area.

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And that's one of the reasons I, and I'm sure you can customize that.

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There are ways to do that,

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but I have to pay more attention to this.

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Right now, all of the attachments are dealt with in Gmail,

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which is not a good system to handle that

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because it's so out of context.

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And there are like 25 contexts in the same inbox,

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which I do not appreciate.

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So even the attachments are like that.

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But Org Mode has a much better way of handling it,

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or Emacs has a much better way of handling it.

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I will definitely put my attention

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to this and get this feature out.

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This is all customer feedback for me, so to speak.

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So I would definitely request all of you to try it out.

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And tell me, you know, good

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or bad things about the package.

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And you've been very candid so far. Please be so.

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So, you know, so be it that be candid with your feedback

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and I will get to know how to go with this.

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With so much, I mean, I'm not an expert in Elisp,

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but I have a workaround, which is I have generative AI support,

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which has done well with me.

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I test the software better, so I can use the generative AI

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to help me with the coding,

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but I can test it so that it works for me.

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And I would request your help

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also in testing this software.

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So for sure. Thank you so much for your question.

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If there are any more, I can definitely answer them.