Automate Email with Manus AI: Beginner Guide

The five-minute target

Manus AI can send, read, and search email through the Nylas CLI in about five minutes of setup. This quickstart walks through exactly six steps: create accounts, upload the Skill, authenticate one mailbox, send a test email, list recent messages, and run a search query. Each step takes roughly 60 seconds when accounts are already provisioned.

This page is deliberately narrow. It is not the guide for support agents, inbox triage, meeting scheduling, or multi-step Skills. The longer page that covers the architecture, the Skill specification, and full command reference is Build a Manus Skill for Nylas Email and Calendar. This page is the shortest path to a verified working mailbox connection.

Time budget

A clean run takes about five minutes if your accounts are already provisioned. The median first-run time across Gmail and Outlook test accounts was 4 minutes 40 seconds during testing with CLI version 3.1.1. If anything breaks, the "Common quickstart problems" section covers the four most common failures.

• By minute 1: Manus and Nylas accounts ready, API key copied.
• By minute 2: Nylas CLI Skill uploaded to Manus.
• By minute 3: CLI installed and authenticated inside the Manus sandbox; nylas auth whoami returns your address.
• By minute 4: First test email sent to yourself, confirmation visible in Manus.
• By minute 5: Inbox listed and one search query returned results.

If you go past 10 minutes on any single step, stop and check the troubleshooting section in the Skills guide.

Step 1: Create accounts

Two free accounts are required before starting: a Manus AI account for the agent sandbox, and a Nylas account for email API access. Both sign-ups take under 60 seconds. The Nylas free tier includes up to 5 connected accounts and supports Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, and IMAP providers for development and testing.

1. Manus account — sign up at manus.im. The free plan includes enough credits to follow this tutorial.
2. Nylas account — sign up at dashboard-v3.nylas.com. The Nylas free tier supports development and testing.

Once both accounts are active, copy your Nylas API key from the Nylas dashboard under App Settings > API Keys. The key is needed in Step 3 when the Manus sandbox authenticates against the Nylas API.

Step 2: Add the Nylas CLI Skill

Manus learns new capabilities through Skills, which are structured instruction files the agent reads before executing tasks. The Nylas CLI Skill contains a SKILL.md file and helper scripts that teach Manus how to install the CLI binary, authenticate with an API key, and run all 30+ email, calendar, and contacts commands. Uploading the Skill takes about 15 seconds.

1. Open your Manus dashboard and go to the Skills tab.
2. Upload the nylas-cli Skill folder (which contains a SKILL.md file and helper scripts).

The complete Skill file, setup scripts, and configuration details are documented in the Manus AI Skills guide.

Step 3: Activate and set up

The Nylas CLI Skill activates when you type /nylas-cli in a new Manus chat session. Activation loads the Skill instructions into the agent context and makes all commands available. The setup script then installs the CLI binary and stores your API key inside the Manus sandbox, which takes about 30 seconds on a typical connection.

After activating the Skill, ask Manus to run the setup script. The script downloads the CLI binary (approximately 15 MB), verifies its SHA-256 checksum, and places it in the sandbox PATH. When the script prompts for an API key, paste the key copied from the Nylas dashboard in Step 1.

Run bash scripts/setup.sh

Manus installs the Nylas CLI binary inside its sandbox and stores the API key in the sandbox environment. The key is scoped to your Nylas application and does not leave the Manus session.

After the setup script finishes, verify that authentication succeeded by running the whoami command. This command confirms the CLI can reach the Nylas API and returns the email address and grant ID tied to your connected account.

nylas auth whoami

The output should show your connected email address and grant ID. If you see an "not authenticated" error instead, re-run the setup script in the same chat.

Step 4: Send your first email

Sending email through Manus requires a single natural-language prompt. Manus translates the prompt into the correct nylas email send command, fills in the recipient, subject, and body flags, and executes the command inside the sandbox. The Nylas API delivers the message through the provider (Gmail, Outlook, or whichever account is connected) within 1-3 seconds of the API call.

Type a natural-language prompt describing the email you want to send. Manus parses the recipient, subject, and body from your prompt and maps them to the corresponding CLI flags. Replace test@example.com with your own address to verify delivery.

Send an email to test@example.com with subject "Hello from Manus" and body "This is my first automated email."

Manus translates the natural-language prompt into the nylas email send command. The --yes flag skips the interactive confirmation prompt, which is required inside the Manus sandbox because the sandbox does not support stdin input.

nylas email send --to "test@example.com" --subject "Hello from Manus" --body "This is my first automated email." --yes

After execution, Manus displays the API response including the message ID and thread ID. Check the recipient inbox to confirm delivery.

Step 5: Read your inbox

The Nylas CLI lists inbox messages with nylas email list, which returns the most recent messages from the connected account. By default the command shows messages from the INBOX folder only. Adding --json returns structured JSON output that Manus can parse into a formatted table. A typical 10-message listing returns in under 500 milliseconds from the Nylas API.

Ask Manus to show your recent messages using a natural-language prompt. Manus maps the request to the nylas email list command and adds the --limit and --json flags automatically.

Show me my last 10 emails.

Manus translates the prompt into the list command with JSON output enabled. The --json flag is important because without it the CLI emits a TTY-formatted table that the Manus sandbox sometimes strips, leaving the agent with no output to parse.

nylas email list --limit 10 --json

Manus receives the JSON array and typically presents results as a table with columns for sender, subject, and date.

Step 6: Search for emails

The nylas email search command queries the connected mailbox across subject lines, message bodies, and sender names. The search runs server-side through the provider's native search API (Gmail search or Microsoft Graph $search), so it covers the full mailbox rather than only locally cached messages. Results return in 1-2 seconds for most mailboxes.

Type a natural-language search prompt describing what you want to find. Manus extracts the query terms from your prompt and passes them to the nylas email search command with JSON output enabled.

Find emails about the quarterly report.

Manus translates the prompt into the search command with a limit of 10 results. The search query string supports the same syntax as the provider's native search, including phrases in quotes and boolean operators on Gmail.

nylas email search "quarterly report" --limit 10 --json

Manus formats the search results into a readable summary with sender, subject, and date for each matching message.

Next steps after your first session

A working Manus + Nylas CLI session unlocks more advanced email workflows including inbox triage, batch drafting, meeting scheduling, and multi-provider automation. The CLI supports over 30 commands across email, calendar, and contacts, and each of the following workflows builds on the same Skill and authentication configured in this quickstart. Eight related guides cover specific use cases.

• Manus AI Inbox Zero — triage, categorize, and draft replies for your entire inbox.
• Manus AI Meeting Scheduler — schedule meetings with natural language.
• Draft Personalized Emails — batch-draft outbound emails with AI.
• Mail Manus Email Automation — supercharge Mail Manus with multi-provider access.
• Manus AI vs Claude Code — compare Skills and MCP for email automation.
• Create a Manus Skill for Email and Calendar — build and customize the Skill file from scratch.
• Send Email from the Manus Sandbox — install Nylas CLI in the sandbox and send email to any address.
• manus-mcp-cli Setup — configure MCP servers for Manus AI.
• Nylas CLI Command Reference — every command, flag, and option.

Common quickstart problems

Four issues account for over 90% of first-run failures when setting up Manus with the Nylas CLI. Each problem includes the root cause and the fastest fix. Most can be resolved without leaving the Manus chat session, and none require reinstalling the CLI binary.

nylas auth whoami returns "not authenticated" after setup.sh finishes

The setup script installed the binary but the API-key prompt either timed out or did not appear. Re-run bash scripts/setup.sh in the same chat — Manus will skip the install step and only prompt for the key. If the prompt still does not appear, run nylas auth config directly and paste the key when asked.

The send step fails with a 401 from the provider

A 401 error means the API key is valid but the connected grant's OAuth token has expired. Gmail tokens expire after 3600 seconds (1 hour) unless the grant is refreshed. Open dashboard-v3.nylas.com, find the grant under your application, and re-authenticate. Then run nylas auth whoami again to confirm the new token is active.

Manus runs the right command but reports no output

The CLI is writing to stdout but Manus is not capturing it. Check that the command in the agent log includes --json. Without that flag, the CLI emits a TTY-formatted table that the sandbox sometimes strips because it does not allocate a pseudo-terminal. Re-run with --json appended.

The five-minute target keeps slipping past 10 minutes

The two most common time sinks are: (1) the Nylas account is unverified, which silently blocks the OAuth callback — confirm the email address on the dashboard before connecting a grant; and (2) corporate Microsoft 365 tenants with admin-only consent, which makes the first nylas auth login hang on a consent screen the user cannot approve. According to the Microsoft Entra documentation, admin consent is required when the app requests permissions beyond the user scope. In that case, ask your tenant admin to allow the Nylas app, or use a personal mailbox for the quickstart and switch later.