Email to Calendar Extraction Engine

Email → Calendar Extraction Engine

Turn emails into structured calendar events with zero missed deadlines.

Quick Start

When you receive an email (forwarded, pasted, or from inbox):

1. Parse — Extract every time-relevant item using the framework below 2. Classify — Score each item by type and confidence 3. Present — Show structured results with numbered selection 4. Create — Use the user's calendar tool to create confirmed events 5. Follow up — Track deadlines and send reminders

1. Extraction Framework

What to Look For

Scan every email for ALL of these categories:

| Category | Signals | Priority | |----------|---------|----------| | Hard Events | "meeting at", "call on", "event on", specific date+time | 🔴 High | | Deadlines | "due by", "submit before", "RSVP by", "register by", "expires" | 🔴 High | | Soft Events | "sometime next week", "let's meet soon", "planning for March" | 🟡 Medium | | Recurring | "every Monday", "weekly", "monthly", "standing meeting" | 🟡 Medium | | Action Items | "please review", "can you send", "follow up on", "action required" | 🟡 Medium | | Travel/Logistics | Flight numbers, hotel confirmations, check-in times, gate info | 🔴 High | | Implicit Deadlines | Event is Feb 20 → ticket deadline is likely 1-2 weeks before | 🟡 Medium |

Extraction Template

For each item found, extract:

- title: "Descriptive name (max 80 chars)"
  type: event | deadline | action_item | travel | recurring
  date: "YYYY-MM-DD"
  day_of_week: "Monday"  # Always include for verification
  time_start: "14:00"    # 24h format, default 09:00 if unclear
  time_end: "15:00"      # Default: start + 1h for meetings, all-day for deadlines
  timezone: "America/New_York"  # Extract from email headers or content
  is_all_day: false
  is_multi_day: false     # If true, include end_date
  end_date: null
  recurrence: null        # "weekly" | "biweekly" | "monthly" | "MWF" | custom RRULE
  location: null          # Physical address or video link
  url: null               # Registration link, event page, or action URL
  attendees: []           # Names/emails mentioned
  confidence: high | medium | low
  source_quote: "exact text from email that indicates this event"
  notes: "any context the user should know"
  deadline_action: null   # "RSVP" | "register" | "buy tickets" | "submit"
  deadline_url: null      # Direct link to take action
  reminder_minutes: 30    # Suggested reminder (15 for calls, 60 for travel, 1440 for deadlines)

Confidence Scoring

| Confidence | Criteria | |------------|----------| | High | Explicit date + time + clear event type. E.g. "Meeting on Feb 15 at 2pm" | | Medium | Date but no time, or time but approximate date. E.g. "next Tuesday afternoon" | | Low | Vague reference. E.g. "we should catch up soon", "sometime in March" |

Smart Defaults

2. Email Classification

Before extracting, classify the email:

| Email Type | How to Handle | |------------|---------------| | Calendar notification (from calendar-notification@google.com, outlook, etc.) | SKIP — these are responses to existing events | | Newsletter/marketing | Extract only if contains relevant event dates | | Personal/work email | Full extraction | | Travel confirmation | Extract ALL logistics: flights, hotels, car rentals, check-ins | | Meeting invite (ICS attachment or structured invite) | Extract directly, high confidence | | Thread/reply | Only extract NEW events, not ones from quoted text | | Forwarded email | Process the forwarded content, note original sender |

Ignore Patterns (Skip These)

3. Presentation Format

Always present extracted items in this format:

📧 From: [sender] | Subject: [subject] | Date: [received date]
Found [N] calendar items:
1. 🔴 Team Standup — Mon Feb 17, 9:00-9:30 AM EST
   📍 Zoom (link in email) | 👥 Alice, Bob, Charlie
   🔁 Recurring: Every weekday
   ✅ Confidence: High
2. 🔴 Project Deadline: Q1 Report — Fri Feb 28, EOD
   ⚠️ ACTION REQUIRED: Submit report
   🔗 Submission portal
   ⏰ Suggested reminder: 3 days before
   ✅ Confidence: High
3. 🟡 Team Lunch — "sometime next week"
   📍 TBD
   ⚠️ Confidence: Medium — date needs confirmation

Reply with numbers to create (e.g. "1, 2"), "all", or "none".
Type "edit 3" to modify before creating.

Presentation Rules

1. Always show day of week — humans verify dates by day name 2. Group by date when >5 items 3. Flag conflicts — if new event overlaps existing calendar 4. Highlight deadlines with ⚠️ and days remaining 5. Show source quote for medium/low confidence items 6. Never auto-create without user confirmation

4. Calendar Creation

After user confirms, create events using their calendar tool:

Google Calendar (via gog or API)

gog calendar create \
  --title "Event Title" \
  --start "2026-02-17T09:00:00-05:00" \
  --end "2026-02-17T10:00:00-05:00" \
  --description "Extracted from email: [subject]" \
  --location "Zoom link or address"

Apple Calendar (via osascript)

osascript -e 'tell application "Calendar"
  tell calendar "Work"
    make new event with properties {summary:"Event Title", start date:date "Monday, February 17, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM", end date:date "Monday, February 17, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM", description:"Extracted from email", location:"Zoom"}
  end tell
end tell'

Notion / Other

ICS Export (Universal)

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20260217T090000
DTEND:20260217T100000
SUMMARY:Event Title
DESCRIPTION:Extracted from email
LOCATION:Zoom link
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

5. Duplicate Detection

Before creating any event, check for duplicates:

1. Search calendar for events on the same date with similar title (fuzzy match) 2. Check tracking file — maintain a log of created events:

// memory/email-calendar-log.json
{
  "created_events": [
    {
      "email_id": "msg-123",
      "email_subject": "Team Offsite",
      "event_title": "Team Offsite",
      "event_date": "2026-02-17",
      "calendar_event_id": "cal-456",
      "created_at": "2026-02-13T10:00:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

3. If duplicate found: Show user and ask — "This looks similar to [existing event]. Skip, update, or create anyway?"

6. Deadline & Reminder Engine

Deadline Patterns to Detect

| Pattern | Example | Action | |---------|---------|--------| | RSVP deadline | "RSVP by Feb 10" | Create reminder 3 days before | | Registration | "Register by March 1" | Create reminder 1 week before | | Early bird | "Early bird ends Feb 15" | Create reminder 2 days before | | Ticket sales | "Tickets on sale until..." | Create reminder + calendar event | | Submission | "Submit proposal by..." | Create reminder 3 days before | | Expiration | "Offer expires..." | Create reminder 1 day before |

Reminder Strategy

7. Travel Email Handling

Travel confirmations get special treatment:

Extract ALL of these:

Create these calendar events:

Travel-specific reminders:

8. Batch Processing

When scanning an inbox for events:

1. Fetch unread emails (or emails from last N days) 2. Filter out noise — apply ignore patterns 3. Extract from each — run extraction framework 4. Deduplicate across emails — same event mentioned in multiple threads 5. Sort by date — nearest first 6. Present grouped summary:

📬 Inbox Scan: 47 unread → 12 with calendar items → 18 events found
THIS WEEK (Feb 13-19):
1. 🔴 Sprint Review — Thu Feb 13, 3:00 PM
2. 🔴 1:1 with Manager — Fri Feb 14, 10:00 AM
...
NEXT WEEK (Feb 20-26):
5. 🟡 Team Lunch — date TBD (mentioned in 2 emails)
...
DEADLINES:
⚠️ Q1 Report — Due Feb 28 (15 days) → Submit here
⚠️ Conference RSVP — Due Feb 20 (7 days) → RSVP

9. Edge Cases

| Situation | How to Handle | |-----------|---------------| | Multiple timezones in one email | Extract each event in its stated timezone, convert to user's TZ for display | | "TBD" or "TBA" times | Create all-day event, flag for follow-up | | Cancelled events | Check if already in calendar → offer to delete | | Rescheduled events | Find original → offer to update (not create new) | | Recurring with exceptions | Note specific exception dates in description | | Date ambiguity (02/03 = Feb 3 or Mar 2?) | Use email's locale/origin for MM/DD vs DD/MM, ask if unclear | | Events in quoted/forwarded text | Only process if user explicitly forwarded it | | Attachments with .ics files | Parse ICS directly — highest confidence source | | "Save the date" emails | Create tentative event, mark as placeholder | | Conference with multiple sessions | Extract all sessions as separate events with shared description |

10. Session Memory

Track user preferences across sessions:

# memory/email-calendar-prefs.yaml
default_timezone: "America/New_York"
default_calendar: "Work"
default_reminder_minutes: 30
auto_create_patterns:
  - "standup"
  - "1:1"
ignore_patterns:
  - "newsletter"
  - "marketing"
preferred_format: "12h"  # or "24h"
travel_reminder_hours: 3

Update preferences when user corrects you or states a preference.

When you receive an email (forwarded, pasted, or from inbox):

1. Parse — Extract every time-relevant item using the framework below 2. Classify — Score each item by type and confidence 3. Present — Show structured results with numbered selection 4. Create — Use the user's calendar tool to create confirmed events 5. Follow up — Track deadlines and send reminders