How our Email Scanner Actually Works to Digitize Your Wardrobe
Nothing kills resale momentum faster than digging through your email trying to find the original product details, realizing you have no stock images, no idea when you bought it, or what the style name actually was.
Future Reference’s email scanner fixes that, plus gives you more visibility into what you own so you can shop with intention. Connect your Gmail, and we'll find your order confirmations and add those pieces to your wardrobe automatically. No more manually entering every purchase for resale. No more forgetting what you bought.
But we get it — connecting your email to anything feels like a big ask. So here's exactly what happens under the hood.
The Short Version
We can only read your emails. We cannot send, delete, or touch anything in your inbox. When we read, we look specifically for order confirmations from brands you shop — your personal emails, group chats, and everything else? We skip right past them.
When we find a receipt from our supported brands and merchants, AI extracts the product details (the product you bought, the brand, size, color, price) and adds it to your wardrobe. That's it. That's the whole thing.
What We're Actually Doing
Finding your receipts
When you connect Gmail, we search for order confirmation emails from recognized retailers in our database. Shipping notifications, newsletters, emails from your mom — all filtered out, never read, processed, or saved.
Extracting the good stuff
Our proprietary AI reads the receipt and pulls out the details: product name, brand, size, color, price. We're not storing your entire email — just the structured info about what you bought.
Adding to your wardrobe
Those details become items in your closet. You can see exactly which pieces came from email scanning, and choose to edit or delete them anytime.
What We Don't Do
❌ Read personal emails — We're filtering for merchants in our database and order /return confirmations only
❌ Access drafts, sent mail, or attachments — Just the inbox, just receipts
❌ Modify anything — Read-only access means we literally can't change your inbox
❌ Sell your data — Not to advertisers, not to anyone
❌ Train AI on your emails — The AI service we use has a strict data policy — your data isn't used to train their models
Secure by Design
Encryption: Everything sensitive gets encrypted with AES-256 — same standard banks use. Your OAuth tokens, any stored email content, sender info — all encrypted at rest.
Google’s read-only scope: We request the minimum permission possible from Google. Our technology reads emails to find orders. We cannot send emails, delete emails, or access any other part of your Google account.
Your data stays yours: Email data is tied to your account only. Our internal systems have strict access controls We're not poking around in your purchase history for fun. We only use AI whose policies include not using your personal data to train models.
Google's Rules (We Follow Them)
Our Gmail integration adheres to Google's API Services User Data Policy, including Limited Use requirements:
- We only use Gmail data for the feature you authorized (wardrobe tracking)
- We don't use it for ads
- We don't sell it
- We limit access to what's actually needed
You're in Control
Disconnect anytime: Unlink Gmail from your account settings, or revoke access directly from Google Account permissions.
Delete what you want, or all of it: Remove any items imported from receipts. Disconnect your email and request deletion of all associated data. If you want to delete your entire account, you can always do so via Account Management.
See what we found: Every item from email scanning is marked so you know exactly what came from where.
Questions?
Reach out to support@futurereference.xyz or check out our full Privacy Policy. We're happy to explain anything that's unclear — building trust with this feature matters to us.
Last updated: 02/02/2026
