Clarnix help · Rules
Create email rules in plain language
Rules are how you tell Clarnix what to do with particular mail. You write them in plain English and Clarnix shows you what it understood before saving.
Writing a rule
There is no condition builder to learn. Choose New rule and describe what you want in ordinary language: "archive anything from our monitoring tool unless it says critical", say. Clarnix parses that into a matcher and a set of actions, then shows you its interpretation so you can check it before saving.
Rules match on sender, subject and a few mail headers first, and can also match on the body of the message. If Clarnix cannot express what you asked for, it says so rather than quietly approximating it.
What a rule can do
| Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| Label | Gmail: applies a label. Outlook: adds a category. IMAP: moves the message into a folder with that name, so it leaves the inbox. |
| Archive | Archives the message in your email account. |
| Mark as read | Marks the message as read. |
| Stays in your inbox | Protects the message from being filed away. See below. |
| Move to bin | Moves it to your Bin / Deleted Items / Trash. Gmail empties the Bin after 30 days. For Gmail and Outlook you can put it back from Email activity. |
| Star | Added by some rule templates. Gmail: stars the message. Outlook and IMAP: flag it. |
"Stays in your inbox" is stronger than it looks, and it is how you protect the one newsletter you actually read. It overrides contradicting actions in the same rule. A rule that says "archive it but keep it in my inbox" keeps it, and drops the archive. It is also placed at top priority so nothing else files the message first. Labelling still happens.
What a rule cannot do
These are worth knowing before you build a workflow around them.
| If you were expecting | What actually happens |
|---|---|
| Forwarding | Forwarding was removed from Clarnix on 29 August 2026. A rule containing it will not save, and the app tells you so. It never actually forwarded any mail, which is why it was withdrawn rather than left in place. A filter in your own email provider is the right tool. |
| Automatic replies | Not available. |
| Setting a priority | A rule cannot override the priority. Mail matched by one of your rules is filed under that rule’s name. |
| Alerting you immediately | Real-time alerts are switched off across the product at the moment. |
| Skipping the briefing | To keep an account out of your briefing, turn off "include in briefing" for that account instead. |
| Snoozing, muting, or posting to a webhook from a rule | Not available. |
If you type something like "forward these to my assistant", the rule you get back will usually do something else. On the rare occasion the preview shows a forward action, saving it is refused. That is the removed feature, not a fault in your rule.
Order, scope and limits
- The first rule that matches wins, and the AI is skipped for that message. Mail no rule matches goes to the AI classifier.
- A rule can be scoped to particular email accounts. Selecting none means the rule applies to all of them. "None selected" means everywhere, not nowhere.
- Starter accounts can have 10 rules; Pro and Team Pro are unlimited; Team allows 10 per seat. The limit is checked when you move to a smaller plan, not while you are writing rules.
Account scoping was not applied when rules fired until 31 August 2026. If you scoped a rule before then and worked around the problem by narrowing its wording, the scope now applies on top of that workaround, so the rule may run somewhere narrower than you expect. Worth a quick re-read of any rule from before that date.