When you connect your Gmail, Google shows you a permission screen. It looks like this: [Screenshot: Google OAuth consent screen showing "DailyNest wants access to your Google Account" with the scope "View your email messages and settings."] That's the only permission DailyNest requests. In Google's developer documentation, the technical name is gmail.readonly. In English: DailyNest can look at messages in your inbox. It cannot send mail, delete mail, mark mail as read, move mail to folders, change your settings, or touch your account in any other way. If DailyNest tried to send an email from your account, Google would refuse the request. The permission isn't there.
What read-only actually means
Read-only is the most restrictive useful permission Google offers for Gmail. Here's what's on the other side of the wall:
- Send: No. DailyNest cannot email anyone from your account.
- Delete: No. DailyNest cannot remove a message, archive it, or send it to trash.
- Modify: No. DailyNest cannot mark messages read or unread, add labels, or change anything about how a message appears in your inbox.
- Settings: No. DailyNest cannot change your filters, forwarding rules, signature, or vacation responder.
- Contacts: No. Contacts are a separate permission. DailyNest does not request it.
- Drive, Calendar, Docs: No. Separate permissions. Not requested.
If you open Gmail after connecting DailyNest, your inbox looks identical. Nothing has been touched.
What DailyNest sees, and what it ignores
Read-only access technically lets an app see every message in your inbox. DailyNest does not use that. When you set up your account, you tell DailyNest which senders to pay attention to. The school. The after-school program. The pediatrician. The team mailer. The room parent. You add them by email address or domain. DailyNest only processes messages from those approved senders. Everything else is ignored at the processing layer:
- Work email
- Personal email from friends and family
- Group chats forwarded to your inbox
- Sephora receipts, Amazon receipts, Uber receipts
- Newsletters
- Bank statements
- Anything from a sender you didn't approve
You can add or remove senders any time from your dashboard. Remove a sender, and DailyNest stops processing their email immediately.
Where the data goes during processing
When an email arrives from an approved sender, here's what happens: 1. DailyNest pulls the message from Gmail via Google's API. 1. The message is processed in memory on DailyNest's servers, hosted on AWS in the United States. 1. DailyNest extracts the relevant facts: dates, deadlines, what's required, which kid it's about. 1. Those facts go into your morning briefing. 1. The original email content is deleted from DailyNest's systems within 24 hours. The structured facts (Tuesday is picture day, Lily needs a white shirt) are stored so the briefing can reference them. The raw email body is not retained. DailyNest does not sell your data. DailyNest does not share it with advertisers. DailyNest does not use your email to train AI models, its own or anyone else's. The processing models are commercial APIs operating under zero-retention agreements, which means the model providers do not store or train on the content DailyNest sends them.
Deleting your account
If you cancel, your data is deleted within 30 days. That includes the structured facts, your sender list, your account information, and any briefings DailyNest generated for you. Backups roll off within 90 days. You don't have to email anyone to make this happen. There's a delete button in your account settings. Use it and the data is gone.
How to revoke access from Google's side
You don't have to trust DailyNest's delete button. You can cut DailyNest off at the Google level any time, and Google will enforce it whether DailyNest cooperates or not. [Screenshot: Google Account permissions page at myaccount.google.com/permissions, showing connected apps with a "Remove Access" option.] The steps: 1. Go to myaccount.google.com/permissions. 1. Find DailyNest in the list of apps with access to your account. 1. Click Remove Access. The moment you click it, DailyNest's API token is revoked. The next time DailyNest tries to fetch an email from your account, Google returns an error and DailyNest gets nothing. There's no workaround on the app's side. Google holds the keys. If you want both, revoke access in Google and delete your account in DailyNest. The first cuts off the connection. The second clears anything DailyNest had already processed.
The short version
DailyNest reads. It does not write, send, delete, or change anything. It only processes email from senders you approve. The raw content is deleted within 24 hours. The structured facts are deleted within 30 days of cancellation. You can revoke access from Google directly, and Google will enforce it. That's the entire technical picture. If something here is unclear or you want a permission DailyNest doesn't currently support documented in more detail, email privacy@dailynest.com and a person will answer.