User's Guide

1. Getting started

1. Go to your NewsletterOS site and click Get started (or Sign in if you already have an account).
2. Create your account. You'll land on your Dashboard.
3. The first time in, a workspace is created for you automatically. Before your first edition, spend a few minutes in Settings (next section) to set up your brand and schedule.

2. One-time setup (Settings)

Open Settings from the top navigation. Each section saves independently.

• Profile — your name, role, company, email, phone, website, booking link, and product link. These appear in your newsletter footer and calls-to-action.
• Branding — your newsletter title, subtitle, tagline, logo (paste a URL or click Upload), and an optional header background image that appears behind your newsletter's masthead in the Classic, Modern, and Bold templates (a tint is applied automatically so your title stays readable — wide images around 1400×500 work best). Pick a default template and, if you like, customize its colors and fonts.
• Publication schedule — choose Weekly / Bi-weekly / Monthly, the year, and your starting edition number, then Regenerate dates. This drives the "Next up" prompt on your dashboard.
• Research defaults — this is what makes the inbox scan smart:
  • Known senders — the newsletters/sources you actually read (e.g. substack.com).
  • Keyword sweep terms — topics to catch by subject/body.
  • Exclude senders / subject keywords — filter out promos, receipts, "unsubscribe", "sale", etc.
  • Default scan lookback (days) — how far back to look by default.
• Interview questions — the editorial questions you answer in the Create flow's interview. Add your own, edit the wording, reorder, or delete — the question text itself guides the AI, which drafts a suggested answer for each one from your scan and honors your answers when writing. Reset to the standard four (Theme, Highlights, Small-business angle, Enterprise angle) anytime.
• Reporting categories — the categories the AI uses to classify your research and tag stories in the newsletter (each story shows its category as a colored tag). Give each a label and an optional hint that tells the AI what belongs there (e.g. Funding — venture rounds and exits). Add, rename, reorder, or delete; reset to the standard five (Trend, Policy, Tool, Business, Model) anytime.
• Story verification & sources — two quality controls:
  • Double-verify every story (require ≥2 sources) — when on, only stories corroborated by at least two research items make it into your newsletter; single-source stories are dropped rather than published.
  • Show sources under each story — toggles the "Sources: …" line beneath every story in the rendered newsletter. Turn it off for a cleaner look; verification badges stay either way.

Tip: Good sender/keyword lists are the difference between a noisy scan and a great one. Refine them after your first run.

3. Connect your email

You scan your own inbox, so connect it once:

1. Go to Create → Step 1: Setup.
2. Under Gmail accounts, click + Connect Gmail and approve access on Google's screen.
3. The account is stored securely and reused — no need to reconnect each session.

Your plan sets how many accounts you can connect (Personal 1 · Pro 3 · Agency 10). To remove one, click the × next to it.

If you're ever asked to reconnect, just run + Connect Gmail again — your settings are unaffected.

4. Create a newsletter (the 4 steps)

Click Create (or Resume on the dashboard). You'll move through four steps.

Step 1 — Setup

• Pick the publication date from your schedule (the edition number fills in automatically; you can override it).
• Make sure at least one Gmail account is connected.
• Click Configure research scan →.

Step 2 — Research

• Confirm the From/To date range (pre-filled from your schedule).
• Click Scan Gmail now. NewsletterOS searches your inbox using your saved senders/keywords, summarizes what it finds, and classifies each item into your reporting categories (plus a single "Cover" pick for the biggest story).
• Review the results. Remove anything irrelevant, or Re-scan with a different range.
• Click Looks good — start interview →.

If a scan times out, narrow the date range or trim your senders/keywords in Settings, then scan again.

Step 3 — Interview

NewsletterOS asks your interview questions (the standard four — Theme, Highlights, Small-business angle, Enterprise angle — unless you've customized them in Settings → Interview questions) and drafts an AI-suggested answer for each from your scan.

Edit any answer freely, or click ↻ Regenerate on a single field to get a fresh AI take — your final answers are the editorial direction the AI follows when writing. When you're happy, click Generate newsletter →.

Step 4 — Generate

The AI writes your full newsletter and saves it. You're taken straight into the Editor.

5. Edit & brand your edition

The Editor has your content on the left and a live preview on the right. Everything autosaves — watch for the ✓ Saved indicator.

You can edit:

• Header & theme, editor's note
• Cover story — headline, sub-headline, body, takeaway
• By the numbers — add/edit/remove stats
• Top stories — edit each story's tag, category (your reporting categories drive the tag colors), headline, body, takeaway, sources, and "verified" flag (two+ sources shows a green badge; with Double-verify on in Settings, the AI only writes double-sourced stories in the first place)
• Pull quote, What to watch, and the LinkedIn post

Other controls:

• Email template — switch templates (options depend on your plan).
• Cover image — click Add/Change cover image to open the Media Picker:
  • Library — reuse an earlier image
  • Upload — add your own (PNG/JPEG/WebP, up to 8 MB)
  • Generate (AI) — describe an image and let AI create one (~20 seconds)
• Preview toggle — switch between Email and LinkedIn views.

When ready, click ↓ Export email + LinkedIn to download both HTML files.

6. Re-open, edit again, or delete

Your editions are saved automatically — you never have to start over.

• On the Dashboard, under Recent editions, click any edition to re-open it in the Editor. Make changes; they autosave.
• To remove one, click the ✕ beside it on the dashboard, or Delete edition at the top of the editor. (Deletion is permanent.)

7. Publish

NewsletterOS produces the email and LinkedIn HTML; you send through your own tools:

• Email — open the exported email HTML, or paste it into your email platform (e.g. your ESP's HTML/import option).
• LinkedIn — switch the preview to LinkedIn and use the Copy button (or the exported LinkedIn file) to paste your post.

8. Grow your audience (LinkedIn module)

Open LinkedIn from the navigation.

• Track growth — log your current subscriber count (add a note like "after edition #12"). The mini chart shows your trend over time.
• Build your list —
  • Bulk import: open your LinkedIn newsletter's subscriber page, press F12 → Console, run the provided cmCopy() snippet, then paste the result. (You can also paste CSV or simple "Name — Headline" lines.)
  • Or add subscribers manually.
• Work your list — filter by status and use each row's buttons:
  • 🤝 Connect, 👁 Follow, ✉️ Message open the profile and log the action.
  • ✨ Draft writes an AI connection note (≤300 chars) or welcome message — edit it, copy it, and send it yourself on LinkedIn.
  • Update each person's status as you go (Subscriber → Connect sent → Connected → Messaged…).
• Export to GHL — push subscribers into your Go High Level contacts (if configured).
• Enrich (SignalFire add-on) — look up email/phone for your subscribers. This uses paid credits, so you'll confirm first.

Sending always stays manual — NewsletterOS drafts and tracks, you send. That keeps you safely within LinkedIn's rules.

9. Plans & billing

See your plan and limits under Plan.

To change plans, click Manage / change subscription — checkout is handled in our billing portal, and your new plan unlocks automatically here once the purchase completes.

Agencies: use the workspace switcher in the top bar to manage a separate newsletter per client; click + to add a new client workspace. Every setting and edition is kept separate per workspace.

10. Troubleshooting

• Scan finds too much / too little → adjust Known senders, Keywords, and Exclude lists in Settings.
• Scan timed out → shorten the date range or trim your lists, then re-scan.
• Fewer stories than expected → you may have Double-verify every story on (Settings → Story verification & sources) — only double-sourced stories are published. Widen the scan range or add senders so more items corroborate each other.
• A change didn't save → look for the Saving… / ✓ Saved indicator; if it shows Save failed, edit again to retry (your work stays on screen).
• Need to reconnect Gmail → just run + Connect Gmail again in Setup.
• Bought a plan but it's still showing the old one → it unlocks automatically once checkout completes; refresh after a minute.

Questions or feedback? Reach out to your NewsletterOS contact. Happy publishing!