How to Automate Gmail with OpenClaw: Full Setup Guide

Why Automate Gmail with OpenClaw?

Most people juggle six or more apps to manage email. OpenClaw’s digital twin approach collapses all of that into a single local AI agent. Your email data stays on your machine.

What Can It Do?

• Email triage: Categorize incoming messages by urgency, topic, or sender
• Auto-reply drafts: Generate drafts that match your writing style
• Daily digest: Morning summary grouped by priority and topic
• Label and archive: Apply Gmail labels based on content
• Meeting extraction: Pull dates, times, and attendees from threads

Prerequisites

• OpenClaw installed and running
• A Gmail account (personal or Google Workspace)
• Node 22.16+ or Node 24
• A Google Cloud project (free tier is enough)

Step 1: Enable the Gmail API

Go to the Google Cloud Console, enable the Gmail API, create OAuth 2.0 credentials (Desktop app type), and download credentials.json.

Step 2: Configure OpenClaw for Gmail

Option A: Gmail API (recommended)

openclaw config set gmail.auth_method api
openclaw config set gmail.credentials_path /path/to/credentials.json
openclaw config set gmail.scopes "gmail.readonly,gmail.modify,gmail.labels"
openclaw config set gmail.token_path ~/.openclaw/gmail-token.json

Option B: IMAP

openclaw config set gmail.auth_method imap
openclaw config set gmail.imap_host imap.gmail.com
openclaw config set gmail.imap_port 993
openclaw config set gmail.smtp_host smtp.gmail.com
openclaw config set gmail.smtp_port 587
openclaw config set gmail.username your-email@gmail.com
openclaw config set gmail.app_password your-app-password

Optional: Real-Time Processing with Pub/Sub

openclaw config set gmail.pubsub_enabled true
openclaw config set gmail.pubsub_topic "projects/your-project/topics/gmail-notifications"
openclaw config set gmail.pubsub_subscription "projects/your-project/subscriptions/gmail-sub"

Step 3: Create Your First Email Skill

openclaw skill create email-triage \
  --trigger "new_email" \
  --action "classify" \
  --labels "urgent,action-required,fyi,low-priority" \
  --prompt "Read the subject and body. Classify by urgency."

Step 4: Test with Real Emails

openclaw skill test email-triage --dry-run --limit 10

Step 5: Monitor and Adjust

openclaw dashboard
openclaw skill logs email-triage --last 20

Security Considerations

• Use OAuth with minimal scopes
• Store credentials in ~/.openclaw/
• Review the OpenClaw security checklist
• Use App Passwords for IMAP