Get a daily summary of your inbox in Slack
Every morning, an AI reads yesterday's emails and posts a short summary with the ones that need you at the top.
What you need
- A Gmail account
- A Slack workspace where you can add apps
- An OpenAI API key (pay as you go)
Steps
Start on a schedule
Set the automation to run once a day, for example at 08:00. Once a day keeps costs at a minimum.
Fetch yesterday's emails
Use the Gmail search step with the query newer_than:1d in:inbox. Limit it to 50 emails so a busy day doesn't blow up your AI bill.
Combine them into one block of text
Join sender, subject, and the short preview (snippet) of every email into one list. Make calls this a Text aggregator, n8n calls it Aggregate, Zapier uses Digest.
Ask the AI for a summary
Send the list to OpenAI with a prompt like: "Summarize these emails in 5 bullet points. Put anything that needs a reply from me first. Skip newsletters and receipts."
Post it to Slack
Send the AI answer to a private channel or a direct message to yourself.
Build it in your tool
Schedule the scenario daily. Gmail > Search emails, then Tools > Text aggregator, then OpenAI > Create a completion, then Slack > Create a message.
Schedule Trigger, Gmail (Get many messages), Aggregate, OpenAI (Message a model), Slack (Send message). Import the file below and connect your accounts.
Gmail > New email trigger, Digest by Zapier (release daily at 08:00), ChatGPT/OpenAI step, Slack step. Digest is free, but this is a multi-step Zap so it needs a paid plan.
- n8n workflowDraft file: it imports into n8n (checked with n8n 2.43) but has not been run with real accounts yet. In n8n: create a workflow, open the menu, choose Import from file, then connect your own accounts.Download .json
- Make blueprintComing once this recipe has been built and tested in Make. Follow the Make notes above for now.Not yet
What it costs per month
| Tool | Monthly usage | Cheapest plan that fits |
|---|---|---|
| MakeCheapestPricing page | 120 credits How we counted30 runs x 4 modules (search, aggregator, OpenAI, Slack). The aggregator outputs one bundle, so the AI and Slack steps run once per day. |
FreeFree plan |
| n8nPricing page | 30 executions How we countedOne execution per daily run. |
$24/moCloud Starter plan$20/mo billed yearlyOr $0 for the software if you self-host the free Community Edition (you pay for your own server). |
| ZapierPricing page | 60 tasks How we countedDigest collects emails for free; when it releases once a day the OpenAI and Slack steps use 2 tasks. 30 x 2 = 60. |
$29.99/moProfessional 750 plan$19.99/mo billed yearlyMulti-step Zap, so the free plan (two steps only) doesn't work. |
Assumption: Runs once a day (30 runs a month), up to 50 emails per run. Prices in USD, checked 2026-10-17 on the official pricing pages. The plan shown is the cheapest that covers this recipe alone; if you run several automations, add their usage together.
This recipe uses OpenAI. The AI usage is billed separately by OpenAI on your own API key and is not included above. See OpenAI API pricing.
Watch out for
- The AI only sees the preview text of each email, not attachments.
- Don't send sensitive emails to an AI service you're not comfortable with. You can exclude labels in the search query, for example -label:private.