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Subscriptions aren't on sale yet. Testers who already have a token can follow the subscription path below. Everyone else can set it up on their own AI key today, or ask to be told when subscriptions open.
Summarizes each email on its own, as it arrives in a labeled Gmail folder — for mail where merging the messages together would lose the point.
Less than you might expect.
That's the whole list. There's no text-to-speech account, no object storage, no domain name, and nothing to publish — those belong to CatchUpCast, which makes a podcast. CatchUpGist just emails you back.
Linux today. A native Windows app is in testing and coming soon. macOS is further out; join the waitlist and we'll tell you when it lands.
Download the setup script for your platform and run it — it installs Docker if you don't have it, creates the deployment file, generates your encryption key, and starts the app.
⇩ install-catchupgist-linux.sh Windows — coming soon macOS — join the waitlist
chmod +x install-catchupgist-linux.sh
./install-catchupgist-linux.shThe script creates a catchupgist/ folder next to itself and installs into it. Note where you saved the script — that folder is where your data lives from then on.
It mentions a key file, secrets/bootstrap_key. Once setup is done, the Admin Console's Backup page is the backup to keep — see Backups.
It finishes by telling you to open http://127.0.0.1:5001.
CatchUpGist reads your mail over IMAP and sends your summaries over SMTP, and one App Password covers both. It is not your Google account password, and it can be revoked on its own without touching anything else.
This is deliberately not a “Sign in with Google” button. An App Password can be revoked from your Google account page the moment you want it gone, and it grants mail access only.
Get one at aistudio.google.com/apikey. It's free to create, and you're billed by Google for what you use — see What this costs.
Worth doing while you're there: set a spending limit in Google Cloud Billing. Google's budget alerts only email you when you cross a threshold; they don't stop spending on their own.
Open http://127.0.0.1:5001 (or the port the installer told you). The first time, a short setup asks three things, checking each as you go:
Your prompt — the instructions the summaries follow — is on the Prompt page if you want to change it; with a subscription you can add a sentence or two to ours, or use your own. Moving from another computer? Choose Restore your settings from a backup on the first screen.
Then set up a Gmail filter so the mail you want summarized gets that label automatically. Nothing arrives in the source label on its own.
Making a Gmail filter that fills the label: in Gmail on the web, open an email from a sender you want included, select the three dots at the top, then Filter messages like these. Select Create filter, tick Apply the label and choose your label (or New label), then Create filter. Repeat for each sender. The setup shows the same steps.
Originals go to Trash after 10 days. Ten days after an email is summarized, CatchUpGist moves it from the second label to Gmail’s Trash, and Gmail empties Trash after 30 days. To keep originals longer — statements or policies, say — raise “Keep this app’s copy of each message” on Settings.
With a subscription, you pay the plan's price, shown at catchupcast.com/app before you pay, and nothing else — the summarizing is included.
On your own Gemini key, you pay Google directly for the summarizing, and nothing to us. Cost scales with how much mail you point at it and how long each message is — a handful of newsletters a day is measured in cents, not dollars.
There's no narration and no storage here, which is where most of CatchUpCast's running cost lives.
The Admin Console answers only on the computer it runs on until you choose otherwise. To open it from your phone or another computer, set up a sign-in first on its Access page (a password is simplest), then on Settings open Reaching this console from other devices and choose one of these. Press Restart now, and it then asks anyone who opens it to sign in.
| Choice | Reachable from | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| My home network | Devices on your home network | Nothing extra |
| Tailscale | Your own devices, anywhere | A Tailscale account |
| The internet, at my own domain | Any browser | A domain, DuckDNS or Cloudflare for the certificate, and port forwarding |
Installed before October 2026? Run the install command again first. It keeps all your settings and updates the install so these choices appear.
Using Tailscale? By default Tailscale signs a machine out after 180 days. For a machine that's always on, turn on Disable key expiry for it in the Tailscale admin console.
Use Backup in the Admin Console. It makes one file, protected by a passphrase you choose, and a new machine is restored from it in a minute (choose Restore your settings from a backup on the first screen). Take a fresh one whenever you change a key or token.
You don't need catchupgist/secrets/bootstrap_key if you have a backup. It only helps in the rare case where this machine's data survives but that one file is lost.
If you also run CatchUpCast, it has its own backup; one does not cover the other.
It updates itself. A companion container checks daily for a new version and replaces the app when one appears; your settings and history live outside the image, so an update never touches them.
To update immediately, or to pick up a change to the setup script itself, just run the script again — it finds the existing folder rather than making a second one.
Plenty of people want both: synthesis for newsletters that cover the same stories, per-message summaries for mail where each one matters on its own. They run side by side with no special setup, but two things are worth knowing.
catchupcast/, catchupgist/), so this is handled — just don't move them into one.5000, CatchUpGist on 5001. If something else already has 5001, the installer picks the next free port and tells you which.docker group yet — the script adds you and tells you to log out and back in (or run newgrp docker) before running it again.© 2026 P3 Digital Services LLC