How to Flag Emails for Follow-Up

Manage email read status and follow-up flags to stay on top of important messages.

Mark an Email as Read#

“Mark that email as read”

tool: update-email
params:
  action: "mark-read"
  id: "AAMkAGR..."

Mark an Email as Unread#

“Mark it as unread — I need to come back to that”

tool: update-email
params:
  action: "mark-unread"
  id: "AAMkAGR..."

Flag an Email for Follow-Up#

“Flag that email for follow-up”

tool: update-email
params:
  action: "flag"
  id: "AAMkAGR..."

Set a Due Date#

“Flag it with a due date of next Friday”

tool: update-email
params:
  action: "flag"
  id: "AAMkAGR..."
  dueDateTime: "2026-03-06T17:00:00"

A date-time without a zone, like the one above, is read in your configured timezone (OUTLOOK_DEFAULT_TIMEZONE, default Australia/Melbourne), so this is 5 pm Melbourne time. Add Z (UTC) or an offset such as +11:00 to pin an exact instant instead: "2026-03-06T06:00:00Z" and "2026-03-06T17:00:00+11:00" are both 5 pm on 6 March in Melbourne. Date-only values ("2026-03-06") and free text are refused before anything changes.

When you give only a due date, the start defaults to 9 am on the due date in your configured timezone (or to the due time, if that is earlier). Add a start date to define your own follow-up window:

tool: update-email
params:
  action: "flag"
  id: "AAMkAGR..."
  startDateTime: "2026-03-04T09:00:00"
  dueDateTime: "2026-03-06T17:00:00"

The reply shows each date in UTC and in your configured timezone, so you can check the flag landed where you meant.

Mark a Flag as Complete#

“Mark that flagged email as done”

tool: update-email
params:
  action: "complete"
  id: "AAMkAGR..."

Clear a Flag#

“Remove the flag from that email”

tool: update-email
params:
  action: "unflag"
  id: "AAMkAGR..."

Bulk Operations#

Flag, unflag, or complete multiple emails at once using ids:

tool: update-email
params:
  action: "flag"
  ids: ["AAMkAGR1...", "AAMkAGR2...", "AAMkAGR3..."]
  dueDateTime: "2026-03-15T09:00:00"

See Batch Operations for more bulk workflows.

Parameter Reference#

Parameter	What it does	Used with
action	mark-read, mark-unread, flag, unflag, complete	All
id	Single email ID	All actions
ids	Array of email IDs (batch)	flag, unflag, complete
dueDateTime	Follow-up due date-time (ISO 8601; Z/offset = exact instant, no zone = configured timezone)	flag
startDateTime	Follow-up start date-time (same format; defaults to 9 am on the due date)	flag
sharedMailbox	Shared mailbox the messages belong to (alias email; needs OUTLOOK_SHARED_MAILBOX=true)	All actions

Tips#

• Use search-emails with unreadOnly: true to find unread emails
• Flags sync to Outlook’s task/to-do list — flagged emails appear in Microsoft To Do
• Dates use ISO 8601 with a time: 2026-03-15T09:00:00 (configured timezone), 2026-03-15T09:00:00Z (UTC) or 2026-03-15T09:00:00+11:00 (offset)
• Flagging or marking messages in a shared mailbox works the same way with sharedMailbox set — see Access Shared Mailboxes

Related#

• Find Emails — search for emails to flag
• Batch Operations — bulk flag operations
• Tools Reference — update-email