A four-node email pipeline. A Gmail trigger polls the inbox on a schedule, a Code node extracts sender, date, subject, and body and applies a conditional filter, a Groq-hosted model writes a short summary, and the whole row lands in Google Sheets. The problem it solves is not “which email matters most” — it is “there are too many emails to read.” Every message gets compressed to a sentence and stored in a searchable, sortable table.
Template page stats: author arre, published 2025-07-04, roughly 1,823 views (collected 2026-07-27).
How it differs from the Gmail AI Email Manager
We already list Gmail AI Email Manager (n8n + Claude). The audiences overlap, but the two solve different problems:
| This template (summary log) | Gmail AI Email Manager | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Compress mail into summaries, stored as a table | Label mail so priority is obvious |
| Where output lands | One row per email in Google Sheets | Six label categories inside Gmail |
| Model | Open models on Groq (free tier available) | Anthropic Claude (usage-based) |
| Signal used | The body of a single email | Headers plus prior history with that sender |
| Better for | Teams that need to search, aggregate, or hand off later | Individuals deciding what to read right now |
In short: use the Email Manager to make the inbox feel clean now; use this template to keep a queryable record of what was communicated. They do not conflict — running both is reasonable, one for live triage and one for archiving.
What it does
- Polls the Gmail inbox for new messages on a configurable interval
- Filters with a conditional node (sender validation by default) so only relevant mail is processed
- Extracts sender, date, subject, and body
- Generates a concise summary with a model hosted on Groq
- Appends those fields plus the AI summary as a row in Google Sheets
Prerequisites
- n8n, cloud or self-hosted
- Gmail OAuth2 credentials
- Google Sheets OAuth2 credentials
- A Groq API key, or another model node in its place
- A Google Sheets document with headers already set up
How to use
- Import the template and configure the Gmail, Google Sheets, and Groq credentials.
- Create the Sheets document and paste its document ID into the Sheets node.
- Rewrite the sender-validation logic in the conditional node — this is the one part you must customize.
- Adjust the Gmail trigger’s polling frequency and label filters.
- Edit the AI prompt to set summary style (one-line gist, action-item extraction, sentiment call).
- Activate the workflow, then review the first few dozen rows before locking the rules in.
Use cases
- High-volume business inboxes that need fast gist extraction
- Support teams keeping and analyzing a communication record
- Project managers tracking multi-party email threads
- Any team that wants email turned into a searchable archive
Notes
- The default filter is sender validation. Shipping it unchanged will either drop mail you want or capture mail you don’t.
- The Groq node can be swapped for any other model node without touching the rest of the structure.
- Gmail, Google Sheets, and Groq are overseas services; mainland China access typically requires an international network.
- Rows are appended continuously and are not easily undone — point it at a test sheet first.
- Groq offers a free tier; check its official pricing page for current limits and rates.