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How to Forward Gmail to Slack

Published on February 01, 2023by Botster

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Are you a huge Slack fan like me looking to integrate Gmail with Slack? Then you’ve come to the right place! Today I’m going to show you how to send Gmail to Slack channel automatically and boost your team’s productivity.

From my step-by-step guide below, you’ll learn:

Why use Slack vs Gmail
How to automatically forward Gmail to Slack
How to send only selected emails to Slack using filters
How to stop forwarding Gmail to Slack

Let’s break the mold and level up Slack’s renowned ‘what you need, when you need it’ concept!

Slack and Gmail - pros and cons

“To forward or not to forward” - that is the question! If you’re still wavering between Gmail and Slack, consider these unbeatable points:

Slack is faster. It’s perfect for urgent messaging.
Slack is safer and better protected than email.
Slack allows structuring your discussion threads conveniently.
Slack channels allow you to organize information flows very well.
Slack offers plenty of integration opportunities (including the one described in this post).

However:

Gmail is a more widespread option, and everyone knows how to use it.
Gmail has a better search function.
Emails are more private.
Gmail doesn’t distract you with frequent urgent messages.
The Gmail box is easily customizable.

As you can see, Gmail and Slack have locked us in a productivity paradox! So why not combine the two to your advantage?

How to send Gmail to Slack channel

I love real-life examples! And you? To breathe some life into my tutorial, let’s assume that you run a company that sells air conditioners 💨 You have about 20 employees and always need to stay in touch with them in real-time mode. And when it comes to the eternal Slack or Gmail dilemma, you are sure to opt for Slack!

The tool that allows you to easily forward Gmail to Telegram and Slack is called the Email to Messengers Forwarder. Here’s a short and simple guide on how to use this tool:

Create a free account on Botster:

Open the Email to Messengers Forwarder’s start page:

Name your job:

Remove unneeded text.

While setting up Slack integration with Gmail, you can opt for deleting the unwanted text in the beginning and/or at the end of the message automatically. Enter signal words that need to be removed:

Set up message filtering.

You can set the bot to forward only the messages that contain certain words:

Alternatively, you can set the bot to ignore the messages that contain certain words:

Select Slack on the left sidebar and tick ‘Send notifications to Slack’:

Click on ‘Connect to Slack’:

On the page that will open, click on ‘Allow’:

After that, you will be automatically redirected back to the bot’s start page.

Tick ‘Send notifications to Slack’:

Select the channel to send your emails to:

Select the data that you would like to forward to your Slack channel.

The available options include:

✅ File attachments

✅ Email subject

✅ Email body text

Start the bot!

Now that you’ve launched the Email to Messengers Forwarder, the bot has created a dedicated Slack Gmail address for you. It looks like this:

0aaf-4878-8bc8@parse.botster.io

The bot will send all incoming emails to this email box and then to your Slack channel.

To finish with the forwarding settings, head to your Gmail account. In the screenshots below, I’m showing you the process of Gmail integration with Slack but it works for any other email provider just as well.

A quick guide:

Open your Gmail account, click on ‘Settings’ in the top right corner, and select ‘See all settings’:

Head to the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab and click on the ‘Add a forwarding address’ button:

Open the ‘My jobs’ section on Botster in a new tab:

Open your current job and copy the dedicated email address (0aaf-4878-8bc8@parse.botster.io):

Go back to your Gmail settings, enter the dedicated email copied (0aaf-4878-8bc8@parse.botster.io), and click ‘Next’:

In the pop-up window, click on ‘Proceed’:

You’ll see a message informing you that a confirmation code has been sent to your dedicated email address (0aaf-4878-8bc8@parse.botster.io):

To find the confirmation code, open your connected Slack channel and copy the code from the latest message:

Go back to your Gmail settings, enter the confirmation code, and click ‘Verify’:

Tick ‘Forward a copy of incoming mail to’ and select if you would like the forwarded email copies to be kept in the Inbox, marked as read, archived, or deleted:

Scroll the page till the end and click on ‘Save changes’:

You’re almost done setting up the Slack Gmail integration! The last but not least thing to do is invite Botster to your Slack channel. This is necessary if you want to forward email attachments (Word, Excel, Pdf, Jpg and other files) from Gmail to Slack.

Open your connected Slack channel and send the following command to it:

/invite @Botster.io

You’ll see the following message meaning that the process of adjusting Slack Gmail notifications is complete, and you can now forward your emails with attachments to your Slack channel:

How to filter Gmail for Slack messages before forwarding them

If you don’t want all of your inbox to be forwarded to Slack, use Gmail’s filtering function. Here’s what you need to do:

Head to your Gmail settings / ‘See all settings’ / ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’.
Click on ‘creating a filter’:

Since you are an alleged air conditioning company owner, you may want to forward only the incoming emails that contain words like air conditioner, air conditioners or air conditioning. Enter these keywords or select other necessary filters and click on the ‘Create filter’ button:

Next, tick ‘Forward it to’, select the dedicated email created by the Gmail Slack integration bot, and hit the ‘Create filter’ button:

From now on, all emails containing the keywords around air conditioning will be automatically forwarded to Slack. All other emails won’t.

Video guide on how to set up Gmail to Slack integration

It's better to see something once than to ̶h̶e̶a̶r̶ read about it a thousand times! Watch me explain how to easily set up Gmail Slack notification settings in this step-by-step video:

Checking how Slack and Gmail integration works

Now that we are completely done with the settings, let’s check how Gmail and Slack integration works!

A Toshiba supplier sent me the following email that contained an attachment:

Now let’s check if the same email has been forwarded to Slack:

Yes, it has! I can see the same email subject, the same email body text (excluding the ‘Best regards, Jack Smith’ ending because we’ve set our Slack Gmail app to remove this unneeded text), and the same attachment. Just perfect!

How to disable Gmail notifications in Slack

Changed your mind? No problem! You can pause or stop the Gmail parser - Slack integration is a voluntary option!

How to PAUSE the Gmail to Slack bot

If you want to disable the bot for a while and then probably resume the work in the future, do the following:

Go to the ‘My jobs’ section on Botster:

Find your job and click on the ‘Stop’ button:

Your job will become inactive, and you will no longer be able to read your Gmail in Slack. Don’t remove the filters in your Gmail settings if you are planning to resume this job later on.

You can relaunch the bot whenever necessary by clicking on the green ‘Restart’ button:

How to STOP the Gmail Slack bot

If your project has finished successfully, and you don’t need to forward Gmail to Slack anymore, delete your job.

⚠️ Important: Deleted jobs can’t be restored!

To destroy the job forever, open it, click on the menu icon in the top right corner, and select ‘Delete forever’:

The dedicated Slack Gmail address will be deleted.

Next, go to your Gmail settings / ‘See all settings’ / ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’.
Click on ‘Remove email’:

In the pop-up window, click on ‘OK’:

We’re done!

FAQ about using the Gmail Slack forwarder

Comparing Slack and Gmail, which is more secure?

Slack is more secure since it encrypts data for the users to be on the safe side. Slack’s data encryption provides better protection than that of Gmail.

What is Slack Gmail integration needed for?

With automated Gmail Slack integration, you will get a double-effective business tool. You’ll speed up your workflow and will deliver the necessary information and updates to your colleagues always on time - or even ahead of time! 🚀

What does the Slack Gmail app do?

This automation app forwards your Gmail emails to a Slack channel or user. The app is called the Email to Messengers Forwarder.

When to use Slack vs Gmail?

Use Slack if you:

Often write urgent messages that need to be answered immediately.
Want more security.
Need to structure long discussion threads.
Have huge information flows that need to be organized.
Just love Slack!

Comparing work in Slack to Gmail and Microsoft Teams, which is more convenient?

To me, it’s Slack. I’m constantly messaging my colleagues with some urgent issues, and often lead long conversations that fork into plentiful threads. This depends on your workflow, though.

Can I send Gmail to Slack channel from outside Gmail accounts?

Yes, you can. For integrating your Slack channel with an outside Gmail account, follow the guide described in this article. Alternatively:

Copy the dedicated Slack email address (0aaf-4878-8bc8@parse.botster.io).
Open your Gmail account.
Paste the dedicated address into the ‘Recipient(s)’ field.
Write a message.
Hit the ‘Send’ button.

Done! Your message will automatically show up in the connected Slack channel.

How much does Gmail to Slack integration cost?

Using advanced business management tools like Slack is very convenient and time-saving. And using automation tools to send Gmail to your Slack channels is even more convenient and even more time-saving!

I’m sure that now you are considering the newly discovered opportunity of replacing Gmail with Slack 😉 And you are probably asking yourself: can I forward Gmail to Slack free of charge or is it a paid option?

Luckily enough, the Email to Messengers Forwarder has a very reasonable pricing! This bot has no monthly fee - the bot will send Gmail to Slack every time when a new message is received, and you pay for the number of the emails received and forwarded.

Receiving 1 email costs 10 credits, which is equal to 1 cent (or even cheaper for subscribed users!).
Storing the active job in your Botster account costs 5 credits per day, which is equal to 0,5 cent (and is completely free for subscribed users! 😌)

Take some time, consider switching to the Slack Gmail format described above, and see you on Botster!

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