Gmail Integration
Capture ideas from email via Gmail webhooks
Overview
The IdeaLift Gmail integration captures product ideas and feature requests from your email. Using Google's Pub/Sub webhook system, IdeaLift monitors a connected Gmail account for messages that match your configured filters and automatically extracts ideas using AI. This is ideal for teams that receive feedback via email from customers, partners, or internal stakeholders.
Requirements
- •IdeaLift Pro plan or higher
- •Google Workspace or personal Gmail account
- •Permission to grant Gmail read access during OAuth
Setting Up Gmail
1Open Integrations
Go to Dashboard → Integrations and find the Gmail card.
2Sign In with Google
Click Connect and sign in with the Google account you want to monitor. Grant IdeaLift permission to read email messages and manage Pub/Sub subscriptions.
3Configure Filters
Set up filters to control which emails IdeaLift processes:
- • Label filter: Only process emails with a specific Gmail label (e.g., "Product Feedback")
- • Sender filter: Only process emails from specific senders or domains
- • Subject filter: Only process emails whose subject matches a keyword pattern
4Confirm Webhook
IdeaLift automatically sets up a Google Pub/Sub subscription on your Gmail account. You'll see a "Connected" status once the webhook is active.
How It Works (Pub/Sub Webhooks)
IdeaLift uses Google Cloud Pub/Sub to receive real-time notifications when new emails arrive in your Gmail account. Here is the flow:
- 1.A new email arrives in your Gmail inbox
- 2.Google Pub/Sub sends a notification to IdeaLift's webhook endpoint
- 3.IdeaLift checks the email against your configured filters
- 4.If it matches, AI analyzes the email for feature requests or product feedback
- 5.Extracted ideas appear in your IdeaLift inbox for review
Note: IdeaLift only reads the content of emails that match your filters. Unrelated emails are never accessed. The Pub/Sub notification only tells IdeaLift that a new email exists—it does not contain the email content itself.
Email Forwarding Alternative
If you prefer not to connect Gmail directly, you can use email forwarding instead. IdeaLift provides a unique ingestion email address for your workspace.
- 1.Go to Dashboard → Integrations → Gmail → Forwarding
- 2.Copy your unique ingestion email (e.g.,
[email protected]) - 3.Set up a Gmail filter to auto-forward matching emails to this address
- 4.IdeaLift processes forwarded emails identically to Pub/Sub-captured ones
When to use forwarding: Email forwarding is a good fit if your organization's IT policy restricts third-party OAuth apps, or if you want to forward from non-Gmail email providers (Outlook, Yahoo, etc.).
What Gets Captured
When IdeaLift processes an email, it extracts and stores:
Captured
- • Email subject (used as idea title)
- • Email body text (AI extracts the core request)
- • Sender name and email (customer attribution)
- • Date and time received
- • Gmail labels (mapped to tags)
Not Captured
- • File attachments (referenced but not stored)
- • Email signatures (stripped by AI)
- • Previous thread replies (only the latest message)
- • Emails that do not match your filters
Privacy & Security
- IdeaLift only reads emails that match your configured filters
- OAuth tokens are encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM
- Pub/Sub webhook payloads are verified using Google's signature verification
- Full email content is never stored—only the AI-extracted idea and sender metadata
- You can disconnect at any time, which revokes the Pub/Sub subscription and OAuth token
Related Documentation
- Slack Integration — Capture ideas from Slack conversations
- Zapier Integration — Connect Gmail via Zapier for more advanced workflows
- API Reference — Create ideas programmatically from any email provider
Need Help?
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