How-to guide · Communication Draft an email by speaking it

Actioncompose_email
Audience Motor Vision Privacy
Time Under 15 seconds
Permissions None — Aside opens a mail-app draft; nothing is sent until you tap send
What this is: A spoken or typed request that opens your mail app to a fresh compose window with the recipient, subject, and body already filled in. Aside never sends an email. The draft just appears, ready for you to read, edit, and send when you’re sure.
Try it now

Open Aside on your phone, then say or type:

“Email Sarah at sarah@example.com — running late, see you at 7.”

Aside confirms in the chat history and Gmail (or your default mail app) opens with that draft already populated. Read it, fix anything you need to, and tap send when you’re ready — or just back out and the draft is discarded.

Step by step

  1. Open Aside

    Tap the Aside icon, or trigger your assist gesture if you’ve set Aside as your default assistant. Aside opens to the orb in its idle state with the prompt “Tell me everything,” beneath it.

    The Aside main screen at idle on a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Across the top: the word ‘Aside’ with a red dot, a small mono status pill reading ‘● IDLE’, the cost counter ‘$1.665 today’, and a ‘NEW’ link top-right. Centered in the screen is a large warm-paper-colored orb with a soft brown core, slowly breathing. Below the orb, in large bold type: ‘Tell me everything,’ and below that ‘Tap the orb or type below.’ Near the bottom is a clay-colored ‘Make Aside my assistant’ pill button and a row of four mono pills: ‘history’, ‘type’, ‘muted’, ‘memory · 3 new’.
    Aside open at idle. The orb breathes; nothing else is happening.

  2. Say (or type) who, what subject, and what message

    Hold the orb to talk and say it the way you’d say it to a friend — recipient, then a dash or comma, then the message. The recipient can be an email address you know by heart, or you can describe them and include the address inline.

    The phrase below produces a draft to sarah@example.com with subject “Running late” and body “Running late, see you at 7.”

    Email Sarah at sarah@example.com — running late, see you at 7.
    The Aside main screen with the chat history bottom sheet covering the lower half of the screen. The status pill at the top reads ‘● READY’ and the cost counter has ticked up to ‘$1.696 today’. Behind a slight scrim the orb is dimmed; the words ‘Tell me everything,’ and ‘Tap the orb or type below.’ are still partially visible. Inside the bottom sheet: a small mono label ‘YOU’ above ‘Email Sarah at sarah@example.com - running late, see you at 7.’; and a label ‘ASIDE’ above ‘I’ve already opened the email draft for Sarah.’
    Aside confirms it’s opening a draft — and reminds you to read before sending. The action chip notes ‘draft only’.

  3. Your mail app opens with the draft pre-filled

    A moment later Gmail (or whatever you’ve set as your default mail app) opens to a fresh compose window. The To field shows sarah@example.com. The Subject reads “Running late.” The Body reads “Running late, see you at 7.” Nothing has been sent. The send arrow at the top is sitting there waiting for you.

    The Gmail compose screen full-screen on the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in dark mode. At the top: a back arrow on the left, edit and attachment icons, a paper-airplane send icon, and an overflow menu. Below: a ‘From’ row showing ‘contact@g3nr8.ai’; a ‘To’ row reading ‘sarah@example.com’ with an inline yellow ‘External recipient’ warning chip; a ‘Subject’ row reading ‘Running late’. The body area shows the user’s default Gmail signature card (an Aside red-dot logo with founder details for Richard Houghton) in place of a typed message — the body the SENDTO mailto: intent supplied is appended below the signature off-screen. The Gboard keyboard is up at the bottom of the screen. The email has not been sent.
    Gmail opens to a draft — recipient, subject, and body all pre-filled. Nothing leaves your phone until you tap the send arrow.

  4. Read, edit, and send — or discard

    Read the draft. Tap any field to fix wording, add a recipient, change the subject. When you’re sure, tap the send arrow at the top right to send the email. To not send, tap the back arrow at the top left and discard the draft — nothing leaves your phone. Aside cannot send an email on your behalf, ever. The send button is the only way the email goes out, and that button is always under your finger.

Why doesn’t Aside just send? Email is permanent and public-facing — once it’s sent, you can’t take it back. A misheard recipient, a typo in a name, a draft you’d rather rephrase: any of those would be costly. Aside’s job is to draft; the send-or-don’t-send call is yours.
Note: Aside doesn’t yet read your contacts to look up email addresses by name — that’s on the roadmap. For now, include the address in your phrase, or paste it from your contacts before tapping send.