n8n Gmail Triage Workflow: Claude AI Draft Replies

Instant Gmail triage + Claude AI draft replies—without leaving your inbox

This n8n workflow monitors your Gmail inbox for unread emails, uses Anthropic Claude (Sonnet 4.6) to classify and summarize each message, and automatically creates a draft HTML reply in the same thread. If an email is deemed High urgency, it also sends an urgent alert email to you or your team.

What this workflow does

• Checks Gmail every minute for new unread messages using a Gmail trigger.
• Extracts key details from each email: sender, sender email address, subject, body text, thread ID, and message ID.
• Sends the email content to Anthropic Claude (Sonnet 4.6) to:
  • classify category, urgency, and sentiment,
  • generate a one-line summary,
  • produce a draft subject and an HTML reply.
• Normalizes the AI output into a single triage record and timestamps it for logging.
• Logs triage results to the n8n Data Table email_triage_log (category, urgency, sentiment, summary, and whether it needs a human).
• Creates a Gmail draft reply addressed to the sender and attached to the original thread.
• Sends an urgent alert email when urgency is marked High; otherwise it only drafts and logs.

Use cases

• Prioritize support or sales emails by urgency and sentiment while still drafting replies automatically.
• Reduce inbox backlog by generating consistent Claude-based drafts for every unread message.
• Get immediate notifications for critical emails so nothing slips through.

Technical details

• n8n nodes: Gmail (trigger + draft creation), Anthropic Claude (Sonnet 4.6), Switch, Data Table, plus utility nodes such as set/no op and sticky note.
• Data logging: n8n Data Table email_triage_log.
• Setup: connect Gmail OAuth2, add Anthropic credentials, ensure Claude Sonnet 4.6 is used, and set the urgent alert recipient (e.g., you@company.com).