---
title: "The Email Editor and AI Writing Assistant"
url: "https://plugpress.co/docs/email-editor-ai-assistant.md"
canonical: "https://plugpress.co/docs/email-editor-ai-assistant/"
published: "2026-07-28"
modified: "2026-07-28"
author: "Fahim"
tags:
  - "Mailyard"
---

# The Email Editor and AI Writing Assistant

Mailyard Pro's editor is a fast, **Notion-style writing surface** built for email. You write the way you would in a document — and what comes out the other end is email HTML that renders correctly in Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, and on mobile, because everything is compiled through **MJML**.

## Writing

- **Slash commands** — type `/` on any line to insert headings, buttons, dividers, spacers, images, and more.
- **Selection toolbar** — select text to change block type, apply formatting, links, colors, lists, and alignment in place.
- **Merge tags** — insert `{{first_name}}`, `{{email}}`, and friends from the picker; they're resolved per recipient at send time (and in test emails).
- **Email styles** — a styles panel controls the email-wide look (colors, width, background) and per-block overrides, with desktop and mobile preview a click away.

## The footer

Every email ends with a footer you control: **Global** (your business name, address, and unsubscribe link, pulled from Brand settings), **Custom** (write your own), or **None**. Whichever you pick, a one-click unsubscribe header (RFC 8058) is always sent, so compliance doesn't depend on your design choices.

## The AI writing assistant (optional, your own key)

Under Settings → **AI assistant**, you can add your own Anthropic Claude API key. With a key in place, the editor gains AI actions: draft an email from a prompt, rewrite, shorten, expand, or change the tone of a selection, continue writing, and suggest subject lines — with your business name and address available as context so drafts sound like you.

The assistant is deliberately conservative:

- **Bring your own key** — nothing is sent to Anthropic until you add a key, and requests go out only when an administrator clicks an AI action. No background AI, ever.
- **Proposals, not edits** — the AI never touches your document directly. Its output appears as a proposal card, and enters the email only when you click Replace or Insert — one click, one undo step.
- **Your key stays yours** — it's stored in your own database and never displayed back in full.

Without a key, the AI surfaces simply don't appear — the editor is complete without them.

## Under the hood

Campaigns store both the editable document and the compiled email HTML, so old campaigns always reopen in the editor exactly as you left them. See [Send Your First Broadcast](/docs/send-your-first-broadcast/) for the flow around the editor.