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Translation

MailFellow can translate emails automatically using AI. Incoming emails in other languages are translated to English, and your replies are translated back to the sender's language.

Enabling translation

  1. Go to Settings > AI
  2. Make sure AI is enabled with a valid API key
  3. Turn on the Translation toggle
  4. Optionally pick a Default Reply Language, or leave it on Auto-detect
  5. Save changes

Translation uses the same AI provider and API key you configured for summaries and categorization.

Incoming emails

When a new email arrives in a language other than English, MailFellow detects the language and shows the translation above the original text:

Translated from German
Hello, I need help with my account.
────────────────
Original (German)
Hallo, ich brauche Hilfe mit meinem Konto.

English emails are not translated. The detected language is stored so MailFellow can remember it for replies.

Replying in the sender's language

When you reply to an email (via checkmark reaction, quick reply, or the send thanks button), MailFellow automatically translates your English reply to the appropriate language.

The target language is determined in this order:

  1. Thread language: if the last incoming email in the thread was in German, your reply is translated to German
  2. Contact preference: if the sender is a VIP contact with a saved language preference, that language is used
  3. Account default: the default reply language you set in Settings

If none of these apply, your reply is sent in English as-is.

Auto-reply translation

If you have Auto-Reply enabled, MailFellow automatically translates your auto-reply template into the sender's language. A German sender gets a German auto-reply, a Japanese sender gets a Japanese auto-reply.

The translated version is included alongside the English original so the recipient can read either. No extra configuration is needed beyond enabling both Auto-Reply and Translation.

Sending new emails in another language

When composing a new email with the /mailfellow send command on Discord, there is a Language field in the modal. Enter a two-letter language code (e.g. de for German, fr for French) and your message will be translated before sending.

Leave it empty to send in English or to let auto-detection handle it.

Contact language memory

When MailFellow receives an email in a non-English language from a VIP contact, it saves that language as the contact's preference. Future replies to that person will automatically be translated to their language.

This only applies to contacts in your VIP list. The saved preference is not overwritten once set, so you can manually change it later if needed.

Supported languages

Translation works with any language your AI provider supports. The settings dropdown includes the most common languages:

  • English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese
  • Dutch, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Swedish
  • Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic

For the Discord send modal, you can enter any ISO 639-1 two-letter code (e.g. cs for Czech, fi for Finnish).

Cost

Translation uses your AI API key. Each translation is roughly one API call. English emails are skipped entirely, so there is no extra cost for the majority of emails.

Translation results are cached for 5 minutes to avoid duplicate API calls when retrying or reprocessing.