slack has replaced email for internal collaboration in many companies (thankfully). But what happens when someone outside your company needs to get in touch? you probably still use gmail for that.
however, if you live in slack, you might not think about checking your company’s gmail very often. Fortunately, you can send email to any slack channel quickly enough, allowing you and your team to stay on top of important emails. you can even discuss what the answer should be before sending it.
note: this slack gmail integration only works with business gmail accounts. free gmail accounts are not supported.
send gmail messages to a public slack channel
zapier allows you to create automated workflows called zaps, which send your information from one application to another. you can create your own zap from scratch without any coding knowledge, but we also offer quick templates to get you started.
if you want to start with a template, click the button below and you will be taken to the zapier editor. You will need to create a Zapier account if you don’t already have one. then follow the instructions below to set up your zap.
set your gmail trigger
first, set up your trigger, the event that starts your zap. search for and select gmail as the trigger application and new email as the trigger event. click continue
then connect your gmail account. click choose an account… and select an account from the dropdown (if you have connected gmail to zapier before) or click + connect a new account.
once you have connected your account, click continue.
Next, select which label or mailbox you want your zap to trigger on. if you don’t select anything, any email will trigger your zap, including drafts.
click continue.
note: if you want to fine-tune which emails are sent to slack, you can use the new search for email correspondence in gmail trigger instead or add one step filter once you have set up your gmail trigger. see our filter guide.
now you need to test your trigger. zapier will find a recent email in your gmail account that matches the label or inbox you selected earlier. this will be used to configure the rest of your zap.
click test trigger. once you see your trigger is working properly, click continue.
set your slack action
Now let’s set up the action: the event that your zap will perform once it’s triggered. select slack as your action app and send channel message as your action event. click continue.
connect your slack account to zapier and click continue.
Now it’s time to customize where you want your message to go and how it will look.
Click the dropdown below channel to select the slack channel you want your message to go to.
In message text, you can use a combination of slack formatting and gmail data to customize how you want your message to look.
Any text you type in this field will appear the same every time your zap runs. you may want to write text labels for the email’s sender, subject line, or any other notes you want.
To assign information from your gmail message, simply click inside the message text field. you will see a dropdown menu of data from your gmail trigger.
You can click on things like the email body in plain text, the sender, and the subject line to add to your message. click show all options or type in the search bar if there is other information you want to include that is not listed in the first options.
Once you’ve set how you want your message to look, you can set other options. you can choose to have this message sent from a bot, give it a name, and add an emoji so you can distinguish it from messages from your team.
After you’ve adjusted your settings, click to continue.
now it’s time to test your action. when you click test & revise or test and test; continue, zapier will send a message to slack according to the way you configured your message earlier.
It’s a good idea to test your zap so you can check if your slack message looks good. (just warn your team first, so they won’t be surprised).
if you prefer to skip the test, simply click on skip test in the upper right corner.
if your test looks good, don’t forget to click activate zap. if something looks wrong, go back and tweak things until you get it right. if you’re worried about annoying your co-workers while troubleshooting, consider using a dedicated test channel when you’re first setting things up, then switch when you have things the way you want them.
how to receive private notifications about new emails
Don’t want to receive email notifications in a public channel? that makes sense. Here’s a template to receive a private direct message in slack when new gmail messages arrive, instead of a post in a public channel.
The process to configure everything is the same as above. you’ll be prompted to sign in to gmail and slack, then you’ll be allowed to customize things if you want.
This article was originally published on November 8, 2019 by Justin Pot. Substantially updated December 2021, by Krystina Martinez.