macOS Personal AI Email Assistant — Apple Mail Triage + Calendar/iMessage Automation (local-first)
Worldwide
I'm looking for a strong macOS automation engineer to build (and harden) a local-first personal assistant that runs on my Mac and keeps my email, calendar, and messages triaged automatically. A working prototype already exists — I need someone to turn it into something reliable, maintainable, and extensible. The core idea: the inbox is a to-do list, not a filing cabinet. Across all my accounts, incoming mail should be auto-classified into a single color-coded priority view that syncs to my iPhone — without me sorting anything by hand. What's already prototyped (works, but brittle): Apple Mail flag-based triage across ~6 accounts (personal Gmail, Google Workspace, and corporate Exchange/Outlook), driven by AppleScript Classification logic: sender type (real human vs automated), To vs CC (sent directly to me = higher priority than CC'd on a thread), and financial/transactional detection A color scheme that maps to actions: Red = act now, Orange = reply needed, Yellow = waiting on someone, Green = financial, Blue = automated/review Calendar mirroring (corporate Exchange calendars → an iCloud calendar so they appear on my iPhone), running on a schedule via launchd Early iMessage awareness (surface texts needing a reply; weekly spam sweep) What I need built: Reliable "new mail" triage engine. Classify only newly arrived mail in Apple Mail and apply the correct flag — event-driven or efficient polling, not a fragile full-inbox re-scan. Must not choke on large mailboxes (I have accounts with 800+ messages). Robust classification. Combine deterministic rules with an LLM (I use Claude) for the judgment calls, with a clean rules fallback when the model is unavailable. Easy for me to correct a miscategorized email and have the rule adjust. Cross-account unified priority view that syncs to iPhone (built on Apple Mail flags, since smart mailboxes don't sync). Calendar sync — productionize the Exchange→iCloud mirror (idempotent, no duplicates, handles updates/cancellations). iMessage assistant — on-demand "what needs a reply?" and a weekly spam-surfacing sweep (surface only; never auto-send or delete). Scheduling + logging + recovery — launchd/cron jobs that are observable, log clearly, and fail safe. Hard requirements (non-negotiable): Local-first / privacy-preserving. Corporate mail must stay native on the machine — no routing work email through third-party servers (no SaneBox-style cloud relays for the managed accounts). Never destructive. The system may flag, archive, and mark-read — it must never delete, send, reply, or forward without my explicit approval. Everything must sync correctly to iPhone (flags, archive, read state). Tech environment: macOS (Apple Mail, Calendar, Messages) · AppleScript/JXA · launchd · Node.js · MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers · Claude API. I'm technical (senior Salesforce admin/developer), so you can talk to me directly about architecture.
- Less than 30 hrs/weekHourly
- < 1 monthDuration
- IntermediateExperience Level
$40.00
-
$100.00
Hourly- Remote Job
- One-time projectProject Type
- Contract-to-hireThis job has the potential to turn into a full time role
Skills and Expertise
Activity on this job
- Proposals:20 to 50
- Last viewed by client:2 days ago
- Interviewing:0
- Invites sent:0
- Unanswered invites:0
About the client
- United States1:33 AM
- Tech & ITIndividual client
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