A priority inbox for everything, not just mail.
Signals reads what changed across your connected sources and everything you captured, then puts the few things that genuinely need you at the top — each one carrying the message, thread or call it came from.
Signals is a macOS daily digest that ranks what needs your attention across Slack, Gmail, Read.ai and everything you have captured. Instead of three unread counts you get one ordered list, and every item shows the message, thread or call it came from. In Private mode the whole thing is assembled on your Mac.
What is a priority inbox?
A priority inbox is a view that orders what has arrived by how much it needs you, rather than by when it turned up. Gmail popularised the idea in mail — important-and-unread at the top, everything else beneath — and the reason it worked is that a reverse-chronological list treats a contract renewal and a newsletter as equals, which they are not.
The idea aged badly for one reason: mail stopped being where work arrives. A normal day now lands across a mail client, a few dozen Slack channels, a handful of calls and whatever you wrote down yourself. Each of those has its own unread badge, and none of them knows about the others. So people improvise — a morning sweep of starred mail, a scroll through channels hoping the important one is still on screen, a notetaker's summary they never reopen. It works until a day gets busy, which is exactly the day it needed to work.
Signals takes the priority-inbox idea and points it at all of it at once. It looks at what has changed since you last checked, across the sources you connected and the notes, dictations and screenshots you captured yourself, and produces one ordered list of what to deal with. The order is the product — anything that did not earn a place near the top is still there, just further down where it belongs.
The part that makes it usable rather than unnerving is provenance. Every item names its origin: the Slack thread, the sender and subject, the call it was said on. You are never asked to trust a ranking you cannot check, because an assistant that cannot show you where something came from has no business telling you it matters.
How to set up a daily digest of Slack and Gmail
Four steps. The longest part is deciding which sources you actually want it reading.
- Connect your sources one at a timeSlack, Gmail and Read.ai are connected individually, each through its own sign-in, each revocable on its own without touching the others. Connect one to start — Signals works with a single source and gets more useful with each one you add. Calendar is coming.
- Let it read what changedSignals looks at what has moved since you last checked, alongside the notes, dictations and screenshots already in your Brain. The first pass takes a moment while it catches up on recent history; after that it is incremental.
- Open Signals and read from the topOne list, ordered. Each row states what happened, why it is where it is, and which source it came from — a channel name, a sender, a call and its date.
- Open the original, or send it onwardClick through to the actual Slack thread or mail. Anything that turns out to be a commitment can go to Cadence, and anything you want to ask about can go to Chat with the context already loaded.
Tip. Signals is deliberately something you open, not something that buzzes. Keep your real notifications for the things that genuinely cannot wait, and let the digest handle everything else, which is most of it.
What Signals does that an unread count cannot
The top of the list is the whole point.
Sorting by arrival time is not triage, it is a queue. Signals orders by what appears to need you — a direct question left hanging, a thread that changed direction, a promise with a date on it — and lets the rest settle below.
Every item says where it came from.
A row reads like "in #launch, Tuesday" or "from your Aug 3 call", and clicking it opens the original. Nothing is summarised into anonymity, because a ranking you cannot audit is just a guess with confidence.
It tells you why, in words.
There is no invented number, no priority percentage, no fabricated urgency index. Signals gives you the reason it moved something up — you were asked directly, the deadline is tomorrow — and you can disagree with a reason.
Slack, Gmail and Read.ai together.
Each source is connected separately by you, and then stops being a separate place. The thread and the mail about the same thing sit next to each other rather than in two apps you check at different times.
The note you wrote ranks too.
What you captured is not a different category of thing. A dictation from Monday about the pricing page can rank alongside the Slack thread about the pricing page, because Signals reads the same Brain.
Fetching needs the network. Judging does not.
Reading your mail obviously requires talking to Gmail. Deciding what matters does not — in Private mode that judgement is made by a model running on your Mac, and the contents never reach a third party.
Signals vs the inboxes you already have
You already own a priority inbox in Gmail and an unread badge in Slack, both free. The honest question is what a second layer buys you.
| Signals | Priority inbox / unreads | |
|---|---|---|
| Covers mail, chat and calls at once | Yes — one ordered list | No — one app each |
| Includes your own notes and dictations | Yes, from the same Brain | No |
| Explains why something is near the top | Yes, in a sentence | Partly — sender rules and flags |
| Tells you the second something lands | No — it is a digest you open | Yes, instantly |
| Works with nothing connected | No — you connect each source yourself | Already connected |
| Links back to the original message | Yes, on every row | Yes — it is the original |
| Runs without sending content to a provider | Yes, in Private mode | Mail already lives on their servers |
| Price | Free tier, paid plans for more | Free |
If your work genuinely lives in one app, do not add a layer — Slack unreads are a perfectly good priority inbox for someone who only uses Slack. Signals is for the person whose day is scattered across three or four places, and who has noticed that the thing they missed last week was in the one they checked least. It is also not a notification system: keep those on for anything that cannot survive an hour.
What Signals can actually see
Only the sources you connected, and only for as long as you leave them connected. Slack, Gmail and Read.ai are authorised one at a time, each with its own consent screen, and each can be revoked on its own — pulling Gmail out does not disturb Slack, and revoking everything leaves the app working on what you captured yourself.
In Private mode, the ranking is done by a model on your Mac. Messages are fetched from the source that already holds them, indexed locally, and judged locally; the egress counter stays at zero for the reasoning step because nothing is sent. In Connected mode, only what a given request needs goes to a hosted frontier model — Anthropic or OpenAI — rather than your whole mailbox. If you bring your own key, that request goes from your Mac straight to the provider and never passes through us.
Nothing you connect is used to train a model, by us or by the providers. The index Signals ranks against is the Brain, which is a set of files on your own disk — so the history it reasons over is somewhere you can open, back up, or delete.
Frequently asked questions
What is a priority inbox, and how is this different from unread messages?
A priority inbox orders what arrived by how much it needs you rather than by when it arrived. Unread counts do the opposite — they tell you how much is left, not what to do first. Signals extends the idea past mail, so Slack threads, mail and call notes are ranked in a single list instead of three.
Which apps can Signals read?
Slack, Gmail and Read.ai, plus everything already captured in your Brain — notes, dictations, screenshots and meeting notes. Calendar is coming. Each source is connected individually by you, and Signals works with just one connected if that is all you want to give it.
Does Signals send my Slack messages to an AI company?
Not in Private mode — the ranking runs against a model on your Mac and the content stays there. In Connected mode, only the material a specific request needs is sent to a hosted frontier model, not your whole history. Nothing is used for training either way, and with your own API key the request goes straight from your Mac to the provider.
How does it decide what goes at the top?
It reads what changed and looks for the marks of something needing you: a direct question with no reply, a thread that moved while you were away, a stated deadline, a commitment with your name on it. The reason is written out on the item. There is no score, because a number implies a measurement that was never taken.
Will it replace my notifications?
No, and it is not trying to. Signals is a digest you open when you are ready to work, which is the opposite of an interruption. Anything that genuinely cannot wait an hour should stay on your notification list.
Can I remove a source after connecting it?
Yes, individually and at any time. Each connection is separate, so revoking Gmail leaves Slack untouched and vice versa. Revoked sources stop being read immediately.
Does it work if I only connect one thing?
Yes. One source plus your own captured notes is enough for a useful list, and most people start there. The ranking gets better as it can see more of the picture, but nothing is gated behind connecting everything.
What do I need to run it?
A Mac running a current version of macOS, and an account on each service you want to connect. Local ranking in Private mode runs best on Apple silicon. Stilou has a free tier and updates itself.