---
license: mit
language:
  - en
  - de
  - multilingual
library_name: transformers
pipeline_tag: text-classification
tags:
  - email
  - classification
  - multi-label
  - onnx
  - int8
  - priority
base_model: microsoft/Multilingual-MiniLM-L12-H384
model-index:
  - name: franz-email-classifier
    results: []
---

# Franz Email Classifier

Multi-label email classification model used by [Franz](https://meetfranz.com) to automatically prioritize emails.

Fine-tuned from [`microsoft/Multilingual-MiniLM-L12-H384`](https://huggingface.co/microsoft/Multilingual-MiniLM-L12-H384) and exported as **ONNX INT8** for fast CPU inference in Electron.

## Labels

The model predicts 8 binary labels per email:

| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `IS_URGENT` | Needs attention today |
| `NEEDS_REPLY` | Direct question or action request to the user |
| `HAS_DEADLINE` | Explicit or relative deadline mentioned |
| `IS_ACTIONABLE` | Any action required (broader than NEEDS_REPLY) |
| `IS_INFORMATIONAL` | FYI / status update, no action needed |
| `IS_AUTOMATED` | Machine-generated (CI/CD, monitoring, alerts) |
| `IS_NEWSLETTER` | Content marketing / newsletter |
| `IS_TRANSACTIONAL` | Receipt, invoice, order confirmation |

## Priority Mapping

Labels are combined into priority tiers in the Franz app:

| Condition | Priority |
|---|---|
| IS_URGENT + NEEDS_REPLY | `urgent` |
| IS_URGENT | `important` |
| NEEDS_REPLY + IS_ACTIONABLE | `important` |
| IS_NEWSLETTER or IS_TRANSACTIONAL | `noise` |
| IS_AUTOMATED (not urgent) | `noise` |
| IS_INFORMATIONAL (not urgent/reply) | `low` |
| Everything else | `normal` |

## Usage

### With @huggingface/transformers (Node.js / Electron)

```ts
import { pipeline, env } from '@huggingface/transformers'

env.allowLocalModels = true
env.localModelPath = '/path/to/models' // parent dir

const classifier = await pipeline(
  'text-classification',
  'email-classifier', // subdirectory name
  { dtype: 'int8', device: 'cpu', multi_label: true }
)

const result = await classifier('Re: Urgent: Invoice #4521 due Friday')
// [
//   { label: 'IS_URGENT', score: 0.94 },
//   { label: 'NEEDS_REPLY', score: 0.12 },
//   { label: 'HAS_DEADLINE', score: 0.91 },
//   ...
// ]
```

### With transformers (Python)

```python
from transformers import pipeline

classifier = pipeline(
    "text-classification",
    model="meetfranz/franz-models",
    top_k=None
)

result = classifier("Re: Urgent: Invoice #4521 due Friday")
```

## Model Details

| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Architecture | BertForSequenceClassification |
| Base model | microsoft/Multilingual-MiniLM-L12-H384 |
| Hidden size | 384 |
| Layers | 12 |
| Attention heads | 12 |
| Max sequence length | 512 |
| Vocab size | 250,037 |
| Tokenizer | XLMRobertaTokenizer (SentencePiece BPE) |
| Problem type | Multi-label classification |
| Quantization | ONNX INT8 |
| Model size | ~113 MB (quantized) |

## Training

Trained on LLM-generated synthetic email data. No real user emails or personal data were used in training. Labels were bootstrapped via LLM annotation and human-reviewed for quality.

Fine-tuned with multi-label BCE loss, then exported to ONNX with INT8 dynamic quantization.

## How Franz Uses This Model

This model is **Stage 2** in Franz's three-stage email classification funnel:

1. **Stage 1 — Heuristics**: Fast rules-based classification for obvious cases
2. **Stage 2 — ML (this model)**: ONNX inference for ambiguous emails (confidence threshold: 0.75)
3. **Stage 3 — LLM**: Local or cloud LLM for emails below the ML confidence threshold

The model is downloaded on demand when a user first adds an email account to Franz. If unavailable, the app gracefully falls through to Stage 3.

## License

MIT