---
title: "Rule"
canonical: https://replypen.com/glossary/rule
description: "In ReplyPen, a Rule decides whether a kind of email gets a Draft."
question: "What is a Rule in ReplyPen?"
author: "ReplyPen team"
published: 2026-09-30
operator: ProBackup BV (Hasselt, Belgium)
---

# What is a Rule in ReplyPen?

In ReplyPen, a Rule decides whether a kind of email gets a Draft. A Skip Rule means no Draft for matching email; an Always draft Rule means matching email always gets one. Rules match on sender, domain, subject or body text, on top of the automatic skips for newsletters, notifications and receipts.

Rules change which email ReplyPen writes for, not who sends. Whatever a Rule does, the result is
still a [Draft](https://replypen.com/glossary/draft.md) that a person sends.

## Why it matters

Most inboxes need no Rules at first: customer email that needs a reply gets a Draft, and email that
needs none is skipped automatically. Rules are for the patterns you notice later, such as a supplier
whose updates keep getting Drafts, or a large customer whose email you never want skipped.

A Rule matches what is in the email, not who someone is in your records. To target a group of
customers, match their domains or addresses; to target a topic, match the words customers use for it.

## An example

Two Rules a support inbox often starts with: Skip for the domain of a tool that sends status
updates, and Always draft for any email whose body mentions "refund" or "cancel", so those always get
a Draft someone reads.

More in [Rules](https://replypen.com/product/rules.md).

## Related

- [Email triage](https://replypen.com/glossary/email-triage.md): Email triage is sorting incoming email before anyone answers it: deciding what needs a reply, what can wait, what goes to someone else and what needs no action at all.
- [Draft](https://replypen.com/glossary/draft.md): In ReplyPen, a Draft is the ready-to-send reply ReplyPen writes for a customer email that needs an answer.
- [Auto-send](https://replypen.com/glossary/auto-send.md): Auto-send is a setting in some AI email tools that sends the AI-written reply to the customer without a person reviewing it first.