Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity

Introduction

A Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity, using its Gmail (Beta) connection, retrieves emails from Gmail and is intended to be used as a source to provide data to an operation.

Create a Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity

An instance of a Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity is created from a Gmail (Beta) connection using its Read Email activity type.

To create an instance of an activity, drag the activity type to the design canvas or copy the activity type and paste it on the design canvas. For details, see Creating an activity instance in Component reuse.

An existing Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity can be edited from these locations:

• The design canvas (see Component actions menu in Design canvas).
• The project pane's Components tab (see Component actions menu in Project pane Components tab).

Configure a Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity

Follow these steps to configure a Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity:

• Step 1: Enter a name and specify settings
  Provide a name for the activity and specify email filter options.

• Step 2: Review the data schemas
  Any request or response schemas are displayed.

Step 1: Enter a name and specify settings

In this step, provide a name for the activity and specify email filter options. Each user interface element of this step is described below.

• Endpoint menu: If you have multiple endpoints of the same connector type configured, a menu at the top of the screen displays the current endpoint name. Click the menu to switch to a different endpoint. For more information, see Change the assigned endpoint in Configuration screens.

  • Edit endpoint: Appears when you hover over the current endpoint name. Click to edit the currently selected endpoint's connection configuration.

• Name: Enter a name to identify the activity. The name must be unique for each Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity and must not contain forward slashes / or colons :.

• Select filter option: Select the filter option to be used, either Use Filter Fields or Use Advanced Query.

  • Use Filter Fields: Select to define a filter using these common filter fields:

    • From: Enter a sender email to filter by. For example, jan@example.com.

    • To: Enter a recipient email to filter by. For example, jan@example.com.

    • Has the Words: Enter words found in the email subject or body to filter by. For example, project status.

  • Use Advanced Query: Select to define a filter query that can filter against more than the common filter fields.

    • Filter: Enter the filter query to filter by. For example, after:2026/01/01 before:2026/02/01. See Refine searches in Gmail for a comprehensive list of filter attributes.

• Labels: Define and enable labels for filtering in the table. The table is populated with these labels by default:

  • INBOX (enabled)
  • UNREAD (enabled)
  • STARRED
  • IMPORTANT
  • SENT
  • DRAFT
  • SPAM
  • TRASH

  Note

  When Use Advanced Query is selected, label filters defined in the Filter field are processed with label filters defined in the Labels table.

  Click the add icon to add a row to the table, then enter a label value and specify whether it is used in filtering.

  To save the row, click the submit icon in the rightmost column.

  To edit or delete a single row, hover over the rightmost column and use the edit icon or delete icon .

  To delete all rows, click Clear All.

• Mark as Read: Select to mark retrieved emails as read.

• Optional settings: Click to expand additional optional settings:

  • Limit: Enter the maximum number of emails to retrieve per page of results. The default limit is 100 and it can be set to a maximum value of 500.
  • Page Token: Enter a page token to retrieve a specific page of email results. Used to handle result pagination.
  • Include Attachment Content: Select to include attachments with emails.

• Save & Exit: If enabled, click to save the configuration for this step and close the activity configuration.

• Next: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and continue to the next step. The configuration will not be saved until you click the Finished button on the last step.

• Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Step 2: Review the data schemas

Any request or response schemas are displayed. Each user interface element of this step is described below.

• Data schema: These data schemas are inherited by adjacent transformations and are displayed again during transformation mapping.

  Note

  Data supplied in a transformation takes precedence over the activity configuration.

  The Gmail (Beta) connector uses the Gmail API. Refer to the API documentation for information on the schema nodes and fields.

• Refresh: Click the refresh icon or the word Refresh to regenerate schemas from the Gmail (Beta) endpoint. This action also regenerates a schema in other locations throughout the project where the same schema is referenced, such as in an adjacent transformation.

• Back: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and return to the previous step.

• Finished: Click to save the configuration for all steps and close the activity configuration.

• Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Next steps

After configuring a Gmail (Beta) Read Email activity, complete the configuration of the operation by adding and configuring other activities, transformations, or scripts as operation steps. You can also configure the operation settings, which include the ability to chain operations together that are in the same or different workflows.

Menu actions for an activity are accessible from the project pane and the design canvas. For details, see Activity actions menu in Connector basics.

Gmail (Beta) Read Email activities can be used as a source with these operation patterns:

• Transformation pattern
• Two-target archive pattern (as the first source only)
• Two-target HTTP archive pattern (as the first source only)
• Two-transformation pattern (as the first or second source)

To use the activity with scripting functions, write the data to a temporary location and then use that temporary location in the scripting function.

When ready, deploy and run the operation and validate behavior by checking the operation logs.