---
title: "Thread summaries"
description: "A few lines at the top of a conversation that say what it is about, brought up to date as it grows."
url: "https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/ai/summaries"
area: "Knowledge base"
category: "AI"
status: "live"
---

# Thread summaries

A few lines at the top of a conversation that say what it is about, brought up to date as it grows.

## Details

- Open a conversation and the Summary card sits above its first message, written from its last ten messages, so a long thread reads in a few lines before you open any of it. The card can be collapsed, and stays collapsed in that browser.
- It is written when it is first needed and then kept, so opening the conversation again costs nothing. Once a newer message has arrived, the next opening writes it again in the background and shows the old one until the new one is ready.
- Summaries spend no AI actions. They are written by a model that runs where OpenEmail itself runs, so the conversation does not go to an outside AI company for them, and the summary is stored encrypted with the thread.
- A conversation holding an end-to-end encrypted message is not summarised. A summary written before that message arrived is kept, and says it leaves the sealed message out.
- The same summary is on the REST API as GET /threads/{id}/summary, on the SDK as threads.summary, on the command line as openemail threads summary and on the MCP server as getThreadSummary.