How to use InkToAudio

Auto Ingest: a separate address for each newsletter

Auto Ingest gives every newsletter its own email address and its own voice pipeline. Draft your content in your newsletter tool, forward the draft to the address, and it becomes a post that uses that pipeline’s settings, before you publish. Each pipeline can also have its own custom AI instructions (see Custom AI instructions), so your written content is transformed exactly the way you want. You choose whether each post renders audio right away or waits as a draft for your review.

When to use it

• Different pipelines per newsletter(s). A weekly roundup can render automatically with your cloned voice and post to your podcast feed, while a long-form essay saves as a draft so you can review it first.
• Different voices per show. Give each newsletter the voice profile and delivery style that fits it.
• Different podcast feeds per newsletter. Each pipeline sends its episodes to the feeds you pick.
• Custom AI instructions per pipeline. Tell the AI exactly how to handle each newsletter, such as skipping a list of links or respelling a name.
• Audio before you publish. Draft in your newsletter tool, forward the draft to the pipeline address, and get audio or a draft to review before the issue goes out.

Creating a pipeline

1. Open Auto Ingest in the sidebar and click New Auto Ingest. If you have none yet, click Create your first Auto Ingest.
2. Enter a Name, such as the name of the newsletter (up to 120 characters).
3. Under When an email arrives, choose what happens to each email (see below).
4. Fill in the Production pipeline section. Only Voice profile is required.
5. Optionally, under Senders, tick Restrict sending domains to accept email only from certain domains (see below).
6. Click Create Auto Ingest. Your address is created when you save, and a window titled Your Auto Ingest is ready shows it with Copy and Create Contact buttons. Click Done when you have copied it. You land back on the main Auto Ingest page.

Addresses are two words and a number on inbox.inktoaudio.com, for example model.run.1856@inbox.inktoaudio.com. Each one is unique to its pipeline and separate from your main Forwards address. You can find it again any time on the Auto Ingest page, where the list shows each address with Copy and Create Contact buttons.

When an email arrives

• Create audio automatically: each email becomes a post and starts rendering right away with the pipeline settings. Rendering uses your plan’s render minutes.
• Save as a draft: each email becomes a post with your voice and AI settings already applied, and the AI transformation has already run. No audio is created until you render it yourself from Content.

The production pipeline settings

These are the same settings Auto Render uses, so they will look familiar. See Creating content and Voices for more on each one.

• Voice profile (required) and Delivery style: leave it on Default or pick podcaster, newscaster, radio DJ, storyteller, conversational, or energetic.
• AI transformation: None, TTS rules only, Improve, Podcast style, or Newscast style. This is independent from delivery style.
• Translation: use Generate audio in additional languages now so the first listener in another language hears audio instantly.
• Multispeaker with a Second voice. It needs the Improve, Podcast style, or Newscast style AI transformation, and the AI then writes each email as a two-speaker dialogue.
• Intro Audio and Outro Audio, or None.
• Podcast RSS Feeds: select the podcast feeds where each episode will appear.

Add AI instructions to a pipeline

The AI instructions (optional) box holds guidance for the AI transformation, such as dropping a list of links at the top of every issue or respelling a name so it is pronounced correctly. To reuse text you saved before, pick one from Use a saved instruction. It copies the text into the box, and you can edit it from there. Each pipeline can hold up to 5,000 characters.

Editing a saved instruction in Settings later does not change pipelines that already used it, because the text was copied in when you picked it.

Getting email into the pipeline

• Forward your draft. Forward or email your draft content to the pipeline address. Send a test issue from your newsletter tool, or forward an existing one, to try it out.
• Restrict sending domains. Each pipeline has its own Restrict sending domains setting in the Senders section of its editor. Tick it, then list one domain per line under Allowed sender domains (one per line). Leave it unticked or empty to accept email from any domain. An email from a domain that is not on the list does not become a post, but it still shows up in Forwards. The Restrict sending domains setting in Settings covers only your main forwarding address, not Auto Ingest addresses. See the email forwarding guide.

InkToAudio cleans the email body first, removing the email clutter around the content. Images are stripped and attachments are ignored. Then the pipeline’s AI transformation runs.

Managing your pipelines

The Auto Ingest page lists every pipeline. Each row shows the name, a badge (Creates audio or Saves drafts), a Paused badge when it is paused, the email address, and these buttons:

• Copy puts the address on your clipboard.
• Create Contact downloads a contact card for the address.
• Edit opens the pipeline settings. Click Save Changes when you are done.
• Delete asks you to confirm in a window titled Delete Auto Ingest? The address stops working right away and new emails to it are no longer turned into posts. Posts already created from the pipeline remain.

Pausing and generating a new address

• Paused: tick it while editing. Emails to the address still show up in Forwards, but no posts are created. Untick it to start creating posts again.
• Generate new address: gives the pipeline a new address. The current address stops working immediately, so anything still sending to it, like a forwarding rule, needs the new address. Emails to the old address are silently discarded, so you will not get a bounce.

Good to know

• Emails to a pipeline address also appear in Forwards.
• If the same email content arrives twice, even at different addresses on your account, only one post is created.
• Posts from an Auto Ingest pipeline use that pipeline’s settings. Your main Forwards address creates draft posts for you to process manually. Emails to every Auto Ingest address also appear in Forwards with a To: line showing where they arrived.
• Anyone who can view content can see your pipelines. Creating, editing, pausing, generating a new address, and deleting need permission to manage the account, the same as Auto Render.
• Pipelines that create audio automatically use your plan’s render minutes. Pipelines that save drafts use none until you render.