Summarize Emails Daily
Automate daily email summaries by scheduling triggers, extracting key information, and sending concise reports directly to your inbox.
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Key Takeaways
- Daily automated summary - Runs on a schedule (default 8 AM UTC) and delivers a digest of the previous day's emails.
- AI-powered analysis - Uses GPT-4.1 to summarize emails, highlight action items, and provide stats.
- Delivered to your inbox - The summary is sent directly to your Gmail so you start your day with a clear overview.
- Extracts key fields - Pulls sender, subject, snippet, date, and labels from each email before summarizing.
What This Workflow Does
This workflow fetches your Gmail emails from the previous day, extracts key information from each one, and uses AI to generate a structured summary with stats and action items. The summary is then emailed back to you. It runs on a daily schedule so you get a morning briefing without doing anything manually.
Use cases:
- Getting a quick overview of yesterday's emails before diving into your inbox
- Identifying action items and deadlines without reading every email individually
- Staying on top of a high-volume inbox by scanning a single summary instead of dozens of messages
How It Works
| Step | What Happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Scheduled Trigger | Fires daily at 8 AM UTC (configurable). |
| 2. Find Emails | Fetches all emails from the previous day via Gmail. |
| 3. Extract Info | A code node pulls out the date, sender, subject, snippet, labels, and recipient from each email. |
| 4. AI Summary | GPT-4.1 summarizes the emails into a single message with stats and action items. |
| 5. Send Email | The summary is sent to your Gmail inbox. |
Workflow Nodes
| Node | Role |
|---|---|
| Scheduled Trigger | Runs the workflow daily at 8 AM UTC |
| Gmail Find Email | Fetches emails from the previous day |
| Code (Extract Info) | Extracts date, sender, subject, snippet, labels, and recipient from each email |
| AI Agent (GPT-4.1) | Summarizes emails, identifies stats and action items |
| Gmail Send Email | Sends the summary to the logged-in user's inbox |
Setup Instructions
- Add the "Summarize Emails Daily" template to your Needle workspace.
- Connect your Gmail account by creating a Gmail connector in Needle.
- Select your Gmail connector in the Find Email and Send Email nodes.
- Adjust the schedule in the Scheduled Trigger node if you want a different time than 8 AM UTC.
- Publish the workflow to start receiving daily summaries.
Customization
| What You Can Change | How |
|---|---|
| Schedule time | Edit the cron expression in the Scheduled Trigger node (default: 0 8 * * * for 8 AM UTC) |
| Timezone | Change the timezone setting in the Scheduled Trigger node |
| Summary style | Modify the AI prompt to focus on different aspects, such as only action items or grouping by sender |
| Email query | Update the Find Email node instructions to filter specific labels or senders |
FAQ
Q: Can I receive the summary on Slack instead of email? A: The default template sends via Gmail. You could replace the Send Email node with a Slack node if you prefer.
Q: What if I have no emails from the previous day? A: The workflow will still run, but the AI summary will reflect that there were no emails to report on.
Q: Can I change how many emails are included?
A: The Find Email node fetches up to 20 results by default. You can increase the max_results setting in that node.
Q: Does it include email attachments in the summary? A: No. The workflow extracts text-based fields like subject, sender, and snippet. It does not process attachments.
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