Finding Settings
Settings is reached from the account menu, not the main navigation bar.
- On a computer, click the round avatar at the top right and choose Settings.
- On a phone, tap More in the bottom bar and choose Settings under the Account heading.
The main navigation bar carries only the places you work — Home, Chat, Mail, Calendar, Tasks, People, and Approvals. Everything that configures the app or the account sits behind the avatar, so the bar stays the same as the product grows.
How Settings is organised
Sections are grouped in the sidebar (or as a drill-down list on mobile) under three headings:
- App — this device and this workspace: Preferences, Connections.
- Assistant — how Nell behaves on your behalf: AI engine, Writing style, Standing instructions, Activity.
- Account — what you pay for and who can sign in: Plan & usage, Security & sign-in.
The grouping tells you where to look, so a section you have never opened is still one guess away.
Preferences
(App group.)
Appearance
Choose between System, Light, and Dark themes. The theme applies per device.
Text size
A slider scales all text in the app from 85% to 150%. The setting is per device, so it can be tuned separately on a Mac, iPhone, and iPad. A sample sentence shows the effect in real time.
Timezone
All dates and times throughout the app (calendar events, email timestamps, assistant responses) are shown in the selected timezone.
Notifications
Enable push notifications on the current device for event reminders, overdue task nudges, and the morning briefing summary. Notifications work even when the app is closed. The reminder lead time before events is configurable (5 minutes to 1 hour). Everything notification-shaped lives in this one card: the briefing schedule, the morning heads-up, and quiet hours below.
Briefing
The times of day when the briefing publishes a fresh edition. Default is 07:00, 11:00, 15:00, and 19:00. Every edition after the first of the day includes a look at tomorrow. Content refreshes with every sync regardless; edition times reframe the briefing (morning setup, midday update, and so on). A Regenerate now button rebuilds the briefing immediately, outside of its normal schedule.
Morning heads-up
An optional early-morning push with the day at a glance — today's schedule first, in clock order, then what needs your attention. Off until you pick a time (06:30 is a good start). It's separate from the briefing announcement: the heads-up is the quick look before the day starts, the briefing is the full edition. Quiet hours still apply — a heads-up due inside them arrives as soon as they end, and on mornings where that lands it at the same moment as the briefing announcement, only the heads-up is sent (it already covers the same ground).
Quiet hours
Your do-not-disturb window. While it's on, notifications are held so your sleep is protected — on by default from 22:00 to 07:00, every night, in your own timezone. Set the start and end times and pick which nights it applies; each selected day is the night the window starts (Fri covers Friday evening through Saturday morning).
Nothing is lost and nothing arrives twice. When quiet hours end, anything still worth saying arrives once — a reminder set for 2am fires in the morning marked "held during your quiet hours" — and things that have passed (like a reminder for a meeting that's already over) stay silent, because the morning briefing covers them. You can also just ask the assistant: "don't bug me after 9pm on weeknights" sets it up in one sentence.
Emails from us
Toggle tips and product emails on or off. Account emails (receipts, payment issues, security notices) always come through regardless.
Your assistant
Set the assistant's display name (default is Nell) and choose a speaking voice. Preview a voice before selecting it with the Play sample button.
Connections
(App group.)
Connected accounts
All linked email and calendar accounts are listed with their status:
- Connected (green) means syncing normally.
- Paused means sync is stopped for this account. Resume it with the Resume button.
- Needs reconnecting means access was withdrawn (usually a password change or revoked permission). Reconnect and everything picks up where it left off.
- Having trouble means sync is experiencing errors. It keeps retrying automatically, and reconnecting usually clears it.
Each connection shows the last sync time and can be disconnected.
More than one account
You can connect several accounts of the same kind — a work Google account and a personal Outlook one, say, or two Google accounts. Mail from every connected account lands in the one unified inbox, and every connected calendar appears in the one week view. Pressing Connect Google or Connect Microsoft again brings up the provider's account chooser so you can pick a different account. How many accounts you can connect depends on your plan.
Default accounts
With more than one account connected, one email account and one calendar account are the default: new email is sent from the default email account, and new events are created on the default calendar, unless you name another account at the time. Two things never move with the default: replies and forwards always go out from the account that received the original message, and the account chosen from the composer's From picker always wins.
The default for each type is marked with a default chip on its connection card. To change it, press Make default on the account you want — or simply ask the assistant ("make my Outlook calendar the default"). The chip and the Make default action only appear once a second account of that type is connected.
If you disconnect the default account, the oldest remaining connected account of that type takes over automatically. If the default account is temporarily unavailable (for example its access needs reconnecting), sends and events fall back to another connected account for the moment, and return to your chosen default as soon as it recovers — your choice is never silently overwritten.
Adding accounts
Google connects Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs in one click.
Microsoft connects Outlook mail and calendar (personal and work/school accounts).
CalDAV connects Apple Calendar (iCloud), Fastmail, Nextcloud, Synology, or any CalDAV server.
IMAP connects any email provider that supports IMAP: Fastmail, iCloud Mail, self-hosted mailboxes, and others.
Vault export
Download the entire vault as a ZIP, ready to open in Obsidian.
Sync and storage
Sync frequency controls how often connected accounts are pulled automatically (every 5 minutes to every hour, or manual only). Sync now triggers an immediate pull.
History window controls how much mail and calendar history the app keeps (7 days to 6 months). Widening it backfills the extra history on the next sync. Older mail is removed locally as it ages out, but the email provider always keeps the full archive.
Email signature
Set a signature appended to every outgoing email, both from the composer and from assistant drafts. Paste HTML for a formatted signature or type plain text. A preview shows how it appears at the end of emails.
AI engine
(Assistant group.)
Models and routing
The assistant runs on managed models included with the plan. There are no API keys to bring and nothing to configure. Each request is routed automatically: quick lookups go to a fast model, everyday work to the standard one, and hard problems to the smartest. The available tiers depend on the current plan.
Voice
Voice conversation is included and managed. No keys to set up. Choose a voice and name the assistant in Settings → Preferences.
Web search
The assistant can search the web and read pages using DuckDuckGo, which works out of the box. For higher quality results, add a free Tavily API key.
Writing style
(Assistant group.)
Setup with the assistant
The quickest way: click "Talk it through" and the assistant interviews you, reads a few of your sent emails, and writes a personal style guide. Approve the result and it's live.
Manual editing
Write or paste a style guide in markdown. The assistant follows these rules whenever it writes something that goes to another person: email drafts, replies, composer AI assist, and documents.
A markdown file can also be uploaded directly.
The rules can be cleared to go back to the default style.
Standing instructions
(Assistant group.)
Standing instructions are plain English rules the assistant carries out on every new email as it arrives. One rule per line.
How they work
Each rule's action goes to the Approvals page for sign-off before anything happens. Once a rule has proven itself trustworthy, add the word "automatically" to the line and it runs without asking (actions still appear under Recent on the Approvals page for visibility).
What can be asked for
- Draft a reply. "When someone I know asks a question, draft a reply for my approval."
- Hold a proposed time. "When an email proposes a meeting time, hold the slot on my calendar tentatively."
- File and label. "File receipts under Receipts." (Archives at the provider, out of the inbox.)
- Forward. "Forward receipts to books@yourfirm.com."
- Call a webhook. "POST bug reports to https://your-endpoint.example.com/hooks/mail."
- Newsletter digest. "Follow the Odd Lots newsletter into my briefing." (New editions get summarised in the briefing.)
- Spam and unsubscribe. "Spam-folder obvious junk automatically. Unsubscribe from newsletters I ignore when it's safe."
Rules can also be created through chat: "Always forward my receipts to my bookkeeper" and the assistant writes the rule here.
Compiled rules
A read-only section shows how the assistant interpreted each rule: the action and whether it's automatic. This is useful for confirming the rules do what's intended.
Recent activity
A log of what the standing instruction engine did recently.
Activity
(Assistant group.)
A log of what the assistant has been doing: tool calls, vault writes, email drafts, and calendar changes. Useful for understanding what happened behind the scenes during a chat session.
Plan & usage
(Account group.) This section appears when the platform manages billing. It is also where the plan picker lives, so choosing, changing, or cancelling a plan all happen here — there is no separate Billing item in the navigation.
Your plan shows the current subscription, with options to change plan or manage the subscription through the billing portal.
Usage this cycle shows how many of the plan's included actions have been used in the current billing period.
Usage & history opens the full dashboard: day-by-day usage, past months, the complete charge history, receipts and invoices, and a forecast of where the month is heading. It is a sub-page of this section, with a link back to Settings at the top.
Top-ups are extra credits that carry across billing cycles, available for months that run heavier than usual.
Credit history is the full ledger of credits earned and spent.
The credit meter beside the avatar (when a plan is active) is the shortcut straight to the full dashboard.
Security & sign-in
(Account group.)
Email address
Change the email address associated with the account. A verification link is sent to the new address; the change takes effect when the link is confirmed.
Two-factor authentication
Enable TOTP-based two-factor authentication for an extra layer of security at sign-in. Setup generates a QR code to scan with an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, 1Password, Authy, and similar). Backup codes are provided in case the authenticator is lost.
Signed-in devices
A list of every device where the account is currently signed in, with browser and location details. Individual devices can be signed out, or "Sign out everywhere else" revokes all other sessions at once.
Download your data
Request a ZIP export of everything the app holds: notes, conversations, usage history, and settings. A download link is emailed and works for 24 hours.
Delete account
Deleting an account makes it dormant immediately. Permanent deletion happens after 30 days. Signing back in any time before then reactivates everything. Mail and calendar always stay with the providers, and a data export can be prepared before leaving.