InboxOne: Your Unified Inbox with AI-Powered Features

This is a submission for the Nylas Challenge: Galaxy Brain.

What I Built and Why

InboxOne is an AI-powered application designed to streamline your communication by consolidating emails, calendars, and contacts from multiple accounts into a single, easy-to-use interface. In today's fast-paced world, managing multiple email accounts and keeping track of various meetings and contacts can be overwhelming. We built InboxOne to address this challenge, providing a unified platform that not only organizes your communications but also enhances productivity with AI-driven features.

Our application leverages the Nylas API, which provides a single API for email, calendar, and contacts, making it possible to integrate and manage multiple accounts effortlessly. The AI functionalities in InboxOne, powered by Google Gemini, include:

📧 Email Summarization: Automatically generates concise summaries of lengthy email threads, helping you quickly understand the key points of conversations.
✍️ AI-Generated Email Drafts: Compose emails by providing simple prompts or instructions, with AI generating the full email content tailored to your needs.
📝 Grammar Check: Automatically detects and corrects grammatical errors in your emails, ensuring professional communication.
🤖 Autoreply: AI-generated responses to incoming emails, saving time and maintaining consistent communication.
📅 Calendar Chatbot: An AI-powered chatbot that answers questions about your schedule, such as upcoming meetings or events, directly from your calendar.
👥 Multi-User Support: InboxOne supports multiple users, allowing each user to create an account and manage their own emails, calendars, and contacts within the application.

Demo

Application Demo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bajFtzSJ9WeOH7aSEPG8oUk4I9hKQ3qF/view?usp=sharing

Application Screenshots:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fEQMYQx3INVrp2T-zQrZ5CNqGCnPHQH7?usp=sharing

Code

This Backend Code: https://github.com/shantanu1905/Inboxone
This Frontend Code: https://github.com/sam-79/NylasConnect

Our Journey

Hi, I’m Shantanu, and I’d like to share the story behind InboxOne—a project that my friend and I poured our hearts into. As someone who loves participating in hackathons, I’m always on the lookout for exciting challenges. When I stumbled upon the "Nylas AI and Communications Challenge" on the DEV community, I knew this was an opportunity we couldn’t miss.

The Idea and Decision-Making

The first question we faced was, “What should we build?” Most participants typically opt for web apps, so we decided to take a different route and build a mobile app. We chose React Native for its cross-platform capabilities, allowing us to create something that would work seamlessly on both Android and iOS devices. We wanted to build an app that would genuinely make a difference in how people manage their communications—something that could simplify their lives.

Diving Into Nylas

Once we had our idea, we dove headfirst into the Nylas API. We realized that this tool could be the backbone of our app, enabling us to integrate emails, calendars, and contacts from multiple accounts into a single interface. As we started working with Nylas, we encountered a steep learning curve, but this only made the journey more rewarding.

Email Management: We learned how to access and organize emails from different accounts using grant IDs and thread IDs. It was fascinating to see how email systems operate behind the scenes.
Calendar Integration: Using Nylas, we managed to create, update, and delete calendar events, which became a key feature in InboxOne.
AI Features: We were able to integrate AI functionalities like email summarization, auto-replies, and AI-generated drafts, adding a layer of intelligence to our app.

Learning and Growth

This project taught us so much about email systems and APIs. We got our hands dirty with OAuth, learned how to handle webhooks for real-time updates, and figured out the intricacies of email identification within threads and conversations. Every step we took was a learning experience, pushing us to grow as developers.

What makes us most proud is how we turned a concept into a functional application. Despite the complexities, we successfully integrated multiple APIs and built a product that not only simplifies communication but also adds value through AI-driven features.

This challenge not only pushed us to explore new technologies but also allowed us to create something that could genuinely improve how people handle their communications. And that, to me, is what makes this journey truly special.

Team Credits

This project was a collaborative effort by the following team members:
@sameerborkar Frontend Development and UI/UX Design.