Mem Tutorial: How to Use Mem as a Replacement for Email

Email is a major driver of context switching—constantly checking an inbox to catch the next message, thread, or attachment. Mem offers a way to pull those communications into a single workspace, reducing the back-and-forth that keeps people stuck in email. The core idea is simple: forward, share, or automate the flow of messages so important updates land in Mem instead of the inbox.

The most straightforward method is configuring Mem to receive forwarded emails. In Mem’s setup, users can route messages via a “send emails to mem” flow and add Gmail or Google Apps accounts tied to custom domains. Once enabled, an email—like a note from an accountant—appears in Mem’s inbox/timeline after a brief delay caused by the email provider’s delivery process. The practical payoff is immediate: important messages can be removed from the inbox while still being available in Mem for later reference.

A second approach avoids email entirely by asking others to share Mems with the user rather than sending messages. The transcript describes a webinar planning workflow where most communication happened inside Mem, with email used only to kick off scheduling. That experience led to a rule change: instead of students emailing questions, they share a Mem whenever they need input. The same pattern applies to project collaborators—when someone shares a Mem with the user, it shows up in the recipient’s inbox as a message, eliminating the need for a separate email thread.

The third method is more complex but designed for scale: automating the ingestion of emails from specific senders into Mem using Zapier. The workflow uses Gmail as the trigger with “new email matching search criteria,” filtering by sender domain (e.g., acas.com) and restricting results to the inbox. A key technical step is converting the email body from HTML to Markdown so Mem doesn’t mangle formatting. The action then creates a Mem in a chosen Mem account, using the email subject as an H1 (or H2) heading so the Mem entry displays cleanly. After testing, any matching emails from that domain are routed into Mem automatically, so the user no longer needs to check a separate inbox for routine requests.

Finally, Mem can be shared with people who don’t use Mem. The transcript demonstrates sending a Mem to a Gmail address as an email message; recipients can access the Mem as a guest and still open shared attachments via links. This enables file sharing—such as recorded ad reads—without forcing the sender or recipients to keep returning to email threads. Across all three approaches, the common goal is fewer interruptions: messages and attachments land in Mem, while collaborators get the information they need whether or not they’re Mem users.