Drowning in unlabeled Gmail messages? This tutorial shows how to build an automated Gmail label creation workflow in Needle that organizes your inbox by intelligently categorizing emails.

Overview

The workflow automatically creates and applies Gmail labels based on email content, sender, and context—transforming your chaotic inbox into an organized system without manual sorting.

Key Actions

1. Gmail New Email Trigger – Monitors for incoming emails in real-time
2. AI Content Analysis – Examines email subject, body, sender, and attachments
3. Smart Label Assignment – Determines appropriate labels based on content patterns
4. Auto-Create Labels – Creates new labels if they don't exist (e.g., "Invoices", "Meetings", "Newsletters")
5. Apply Labels – Automatically tags emails with relevant labels

What You'll Need

• Gmail Account – Personal or Google Workspace account Tip: Works best when you define label categories in advance (e.g., Finance, Projects, Clients)
• Label Naming Convention – Consistent structure for nested labels (e.g., "Work/Projects/ClientA")

How It Works

When a new email arrives:

1. The workflow triggers and retrieves email metadata (subject, sender, body preview)
2. AI analyzes the content to identify:
   • Email type (invoice, meeting invite, newsletter, support ticket)
   • Project or client names mentioned
   • Urgency indicators
   • Department relevance (sales, engineering, HR)
3. Based on analysis, the workflow:
   • Checks if appropriate labels exist
   • Creates missing labels following your naming convention
   • Applies one or more labels to the email
4. Optional: Stars emails marked as "Urgent" or "Action Required"
5. Optional: Archive newsletters after labeling

Example Label Logic:

• Contains "invoice" or "payment" → Label:

  💰 Finance/Invoices

• From @client-domain.com → Label:

  👥 Clients/ClientName

• Subject contains "meeting" → Label:

  📅 Calendar/Meetings

• Newsletter detection → Label:

  📧 Newsletters

  + Auto-archive

Wrap-up

With this Needle workflow, every incoming email is automatically organized the moment it arrives—saving hours of manual sorting and ensuring you never miss important messages buried in your inbox. Perfect for professionals managing high email volumes across multiple projects and clients.