Gmail Newsletter Cleanup: Auto-Unsubscribe & Delete in n8n

Stop newsletter clutter automatically: unsubscribe, delete, and keep the rest of your inbox clean in n8n

This n8n workflow scans your Gmail unread messages every hour, identifies newsletter emails using the List-Unsubscribe header, attempts to unsubscribe via the provided URL, and then deletes those emails—while marking non-newsletters as read to reduce noise.

What this workflow does

• Runs hourly and retrieves up to 20 unread emails from your Gmail inbox.
• Detects newsletters by checking each message for a List-Unsubscribe header.
• Extracts an unsubscribe URL from the List-Unsubscribe header when available.
• Attempts auto-unsubscribe by sending an HTTP request to the extracted unsubscribe URL.
• Deletes newsletter emails from Gmail after the unsubscribe attempt (or even if the unsubscribe/delete step errors, per workflow logic).
• Protects important mail: if an email is not identified as a newsletter (or no unsubscribe URL is found), it is marked as read instead of removed.
• Understands Gmail retention: deleted messages remain in Gmail Trash for 30 days before final removal, so you can recover them during that window.

Use cases

• For SaaS operators who want automated inbox hygiene without manually managing subscriptions.
• For automation engineers building “low-lift” email cleanup workflows in n8n.
• For teams managing high volumes of marketing emails and wanting a consistent unsubscribe-and-clean approach.

Technical details

• Gmail Trigger (runs hourly; polls unread messages; supports max results configuration).
• if node to determine whether a List-Unsubscribe header exists.
• code node to extract the unsubscribe URL from the header.
• HTTP Request node to call the unsubscribe URL.
• Gmail node actions to delete newsletters and mark non-newsletters as read.