Give your butler an inbox

What you’ll do: make a brand-new Gmail account that only your butler uses.

Why a new account

Your butler needs to send email and read replies. Giving it its own account means it never touches your personal inbox, and you can switch it off at any time without affecting anything else.

Steps

1. Open a private window in your browser, so you don’t mix this up with your own Google account. In Safari, choose File > New Private Window. In Chrome, File > New Incognito Window.
2. Go to accounts.google.com/signup.
3. Enter your butler’s name as the first name, and your family name as the last name. For example: Bento Rivera.
4. Choose an address. A pattern like yourfamily.butler@gmail.com or yourbutlersname.yourfamily@gmail.com works well. Write it down.
5. Choose a strong password and save it in your password manager, or write it somewhere safe. This is the account password. Butler uses a different one, made in the next lesson.
6. Add your own phone number for recovery when Google asks. That way you can always get back in.
7. Finish the sign-up and accept Google’s terms.

What you’ll do: turn on 2-Step Verification for your butler’s Gmail, then create an app password, a special password just for Butler.

Steps

1. Still signed in to your butler’s Gmail, go to myaccount.google.com/security.
2. Find 2-Step Verification and turn it on. Google asks for a phone number and sends a code. Follow the screens.
3. Now go to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords. Google may ask you to sign in again.
4. Type a name for the app password, such as your butler’s name, and click Create.
5. Google shows a 16-letter password in four groups. Copy it. Don’t paste it anywhere yet. The next lesson stores it.
6. Leave the page open until it’s stored.

What you’ll do: store the app password in the Keychain, then tell your butler who to write to.

Steps

1. In Claude Code, in the Butler folder, type:

2. Claude asks permission to open the password window. Click Allow.
3. The Butler window appears: “Your butler’s Gmail app password”. Paste it with Command V and click Save. Spaces don’t matter. Butler removes them.
4. Claude asks for your butler’s new Gmail address.
5. Claude asks for each adult’s email address: the one they’ll read the brief on and reply from. These people:
   • receive the brief, the Sunday letter and the monthly look-back, and
   • are trusted to give your butler instructions by replying.

What you’ll do: send yourself your butler’s first real brief.

Steps

1. Claude asks before sending, every time. When it asks, say yes, and ask for the first one to go to you only:

2. Claude sends it and puts the full list back afterwards.
3. Open your own email. Within a minute, there’s a message from your butler.
4. If it’s not in your inbox, look in Spam or Junk. If it’s there, mark it Not spam.
5. Add your butler’s address to your contacts, so future emails land in your inbox.

Take a moment. An AI butler you built yourself just wrote to you.

What you’ll do: choose when the brief arrives, and set your Mac to wake up for it.

Steps

1. Claude asks what time the brief should arrive, for example 7:00.
2. Claude installs the schedule. From now on, your butler checks every five minutes for replies, and sends the brief when it’s due.
3. To make sure the Mac is awake in time, Claude sets a daily wake-up one minute before. A Mac window asks for your Mac’s login password. That’s macOS asking you, not Claude. Type it and click OK.
4. Keep your Mac plugged in. A laptop on battery with its lid closed may sleep through the alarm. In that case, the brief goes out as soon as the Mac wakes.
5. Optional: in System Settings > Energy (or Battery on a laptop), turn on the option that prevents automatic sleep while on power, if your Mac has it.