By Dan Donovan, @askdandonovan
Right now Claude is guessing. Turn on Connectors and it works off your real inbox, your real files, and your real schedule. Three steps, about two minutes, and it runs on the free plan. Five copy-paste prompts at the bottom so you can use it the second it's on.
Connect Claude (the three steps below take about two minutes), then open a chat and paste this. It reads your real week and your real inbox and hands you a plan. Nothing gets sent. You just see it.
Read my calendar for the rest of this week and my last two days of email. Give me a short brief: what's on, who I still owe a reply to, and the one thing I shouldn't let slip. Ten lines max. Don't send anything, just show me.Connectors are Claude's built-in plugs to the apps you already use. The tech behind them is called MCP (Model Context Protocol), but the simplest way to picture it is USB-C for Claude: one standard plug that connects it to Gmail, Drive and Calendar. The USB-C comparison is Anthropic's own, not marketing spin. Flip it on and Claude stops answering from scraps you paste in, and starts working off your actual stuff.
Sign in to Claude at claude.ai (or open the desktop app). Go to Settings → Customize → Connectors. You'll see a list of apps Claude can plug into.
Find Google Drive, Gmail and Google Calendar in the list. Click Connect on each, sign in with your Google account, and approve the permissions. You're granting read access plus the ability to draft email, not to send anything on its own.
Open a new chat. Click the + (plus) in the message box, hover over Connectors, and toggle Gmail, Drive and Calendar on for that chat. Now scroll back up and paste the first prompt, and watch it read your real week back to you.
Once the connectors are on, these are the fastest ways to feel the difference. Swap anything in [brackets] for your real details.
1. See your week at a glance: it reads your real calendar instead of you scrolling it.
Look at my calendar for the next 7 days. Tell me where it's tight, where I've got real focus gaps, and anything that looks double-booked.2. Triage your inbox: sorts your actual email so you know where to start.
Go through my unread email from the last 3 days. Split it into needs-a-reply, just-FYI, and safe-to-archive. For the replies, give me one line on what each person actually wants.3. Pull the numbers out of a file: it opens the actual document and does the reading.
Find [file name] in my Drive. Pull out the 3 numbers that matter most and tell me what changed since last month, in plain English.4. Draft a reply that already has the context: it's read the whole thread before it writes.
Draft a reply to the latest email from [name or company]. Match my usual tone, keep it short, and leave it as a draft. Don't send it.